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| “ | One year. I gave you one year to make your peace with your God. And what do you do? Celebrate the day you killed my wife. One year I gave you while I assembled my armies, and now... I bring your death. You had your chance... | „ |
| ~ Dracula, to the people of Wallachia he is about to slaughter. |
| “ | The Morning Star whip. Well played, Belmont. But I am no ordinary vampire to be killed by your human magic. I am Vlad Dracula Tepes, AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! | „ |
| ~ Dracule growing annoyed at Trevor after he took hit by the Morning Star. |
| “ | THERE ARE NO INNOCENTS! Not anymore! Anyone of them could've stood up and said, "No, we won't behave like animals anymore.". | „ |
| ~ Dracula to Alucard. |
Count Vlad "Dracula" Tepes is the main antagonist of the 2017 Netflix animated dark fantasy series, Castlevania, based on the video game franchise of the same name. He's based on the character from the video games.
He is the immensely powerful lord of all vampires, possessing advanced scientific and magical knowledge but withdrew from the world out of disillusionment towards humanity. Eventually he met and married a human woman named Lisa who convinced him to share his knowledge with her so she could help people, hoping to show Dracula that humanity isn't beyond saving. They even had a son together named Alucard.
However Lisa's wrongful death at the hands of a corrupt Bishop caused Dracula to lose his remaining sanity and declare war on humanity, ultimately being stopped by the combined efforts of Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades and Alucard. Following his death, villains such as the Visitor and Death would attempt to resurrect him so that he could continue his goals, but to no avail. Ultimately, Dracula would be revived alongside Lisa, but would choose to live peacefully with her rather than resume his war with humanity.
He was voiced by Graham McTavish (who also portrayed Zoran Lazarević in Uncharted: Among Thieves, both Father Kinley and Dromos in Lucifer, the Saint of Killers in Preacher, Joseph Bertrand III in inFamous 2, and Loki Laufeyson in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes) in English and by Naoya Uchida (who also voiced Madara Uchiha in Naruto) in the Japanese dub.
Personality[]
The Dracula of the Netflix series is shown to be quite different than his original videogame self: Having seemingly always been the strongest and most intelligent of the vampires, Dracula considered himself superior to humans and was apathetic to them, his supreme power and intelligence making him prideful. He would not hesitate to slaughter people for working against him, killing them in brutal ways and leaving their corpses impaled, but would have no qualms sparing those who are innocent and never intended to challenge him. Preferring to live an isolated life in his castle, Dracula referred to humans as peasants and in time as humans grew to fear him so much they considered him a legend and left his castle alone, he himself saw no point in wasting his time dealing with them, content to simply live a life of solitude.
However, Dracula was also shown to be capable of changing: When Dracula and Lisa met and she requested to learn from him, they quickly developed a strong mutual attraction, Dracula being attracted to Lisa's beauty and above all else her staunch character. Describing 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. This soon blossomed into a deep love for Lisa that was returned and they married, siring Alucard, who Dracula was known for being a loving father to. Dracula's respect and love towards Lisa even allowed him to accept her proposition to travel around the world and learn from human civilizations, briefly deciding to live up to Lisa's belief that he had the potential to improve the lives of humans everywhere with his knowledge. Appreciating her encouragement, Dracula became compassionate enough to rescue the two misanthropic Forgemasters Hector and Isaac and take them in, though it was suggested that this may have also been attributed to his lingering inability to see other humans the way Lisa wished he would.
Alas, tragedy would drive him off the deep end when he returned to his home and found it destroyed, his wife executed, whatever light his experiences had given him turning into deeper bitter ashes of disillusionment. Deeply resenting humanity, no longer did he consider 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 citizens 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 is filled with nothing but absolute misanthropy.
Dracula believes that every human is guilty for 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. At the same time, Dracula did give them one year to make peace and remove their mark from Wallachia, 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".
Living up to his threats, Dracula began his war of extermination, unleashing an army of Hell on Targoviste, bidding his army to kill all humanity and bitterly accepting his future eternity of endless hatred. However, it quickly becomes clear that unlike his game counterparts, losing his wife had instead completely broken him and while he may have undertaken a revenge quest to wipe out all of humanity, Dracula grows more and more despondent as time passes, his plans of genocide being more blindly lashing out in grief than a real goal.
Largely isolating himself from the rest of his court and leaving command of his army in the hands of his forgemasters, Hector and Isaac, apart from teleporting his castle for attacks, he hardly creates any strategies for his army to use, only caring that all of humanity died at the end. While Dracula planned to use his unrivaled knowledge of the arts to turn the sky dark and allow vampires and the night hoard to rule the world, it becomes clear to both Alucard and his generals that Dracula's plans are self destructive: Human genocide will mean the end of the vampires food supply and eventually even take the creatures of the night down along with humanity, effectively killing everyone in the world, both human and creatures. Alucard observes that Dracula's is dragging the whole world with him on "history's longest suicide note". Dracula himself shows apathy towards the future of vampires and himself, making it clear that once humanity perished, Dracula was fully intent to join his wife in the afterlife.
However, at the last moments of Dracula's life, he proved that the good heart that he had obtained due to his marriage with Lisa was not entirely lost: Despite his apathy towards the other generals, Dracula genuinely considered Isaac a good friend for his undying loyalty and interacted only with him. When Alucard, Trevor, and Sypha came into his castle, Dracula selflessly decided to save Isaac and teleported him to the dessert, acknowledging him as the greatest of humanity and believing he could contribute to the world more.
It is also revealed that he still deeply loved his son, Lisa's greatest gift to him: Even when Alucard turned against him, Dracula could have easily killed him but instead decided to only incapacitate him so he would not be able to intervene and let him escape. When he fought with Alucard and his friends, numerous times Dracula had the opportunity to deal the finishing blow to his son but never follows through, simply brushing off his assault with ease and making it clear he was holding back against Alucard. Even after briefly losing his composure and savagely beating Alucard down, upon reaching Alucard's room, Dracula was driven to tears and regretted having almost killed his son. Finally realizing that his son was right and that he had already died when Lisa died, Dracula chose to let his son kill him instead of killing him and his friends. When Dracula's spirit appeared before Alucard, he showed that he had made peace with his son, nodding curtly and his face clearly proud and grateful to Alucard for making him realize the error of his ways.
Powers And Abilities[]
Dracula summons a ball of fire directed at Trevor Belmont.
Regarded as the strongest vampire and even the most powerful being in the world and being the oldest immortal in history, Dracula displayed many phenomenally formidable capabilities, extraordinarily greater physical prowess beyond any other, immense magical powers greater than any other seen, and unrivaled intelligence and mastery of the arts. this is further evident as despite Dracula not having consumed human blood for many months, he still proved to be a formidable threat.
Powers[]
- Supernatural strength: Dracula can exert vast amounts of supernatural physical force far beyond the ability of humans and even any other supernatural creature. He is able to easily smash hard objects like solid stone with his bare hands and can casually overpower and slaughter other beings such as humans and even other vampires to where he can nonchalantly drag a human and leave them helpless with a single hand and effortlessly pierce through their body to kill them by impaling fatal spots and even removing their hearts with ease. He even easily critically injured Alucard, scarring him in the chest so badly he had to rest for a prolonged amount of time to heal despite his great resilience and healing factor. Even while somewhat weakened by having not drank blood for many months, Dracula retained an extraordinary amount of his superhuman strength and was able to casually slaughter the rebels Carmilla sent at him and even managed to easily overpower and badly injure his son, Trevor and Sypha with powerful physical attacks, to where the only reason they were able to get close enough and land killing blows was because he realized how insane he had became and abandoned the fight: He easily stopped his son from using his blade against him with a single hand while Alucard was using both hands and then easily punched him to a fireplace and later on backhanded him away a good distance, doing both with enough force to stun him briefly. During their subsequent fist-fight even after having sustained some actual considerable damage, Dracula was still able to physically outmatch and steadily wear down and injure the also superhumanly strong Alucard, sending him flying through rooms and breaking the castle with his physical strikes, to where Alucard, despite being able to put up a fight against him at first, was swiftly left unable to fight back and struggled to get up and stake Dracula when his father finally gave up the fight. A single punch from him was enough to make Trevor bleed and leave him reeling in pain and he could casually lift and restrain Trevor with a single hand and easily toss him aside with a single throw, despite Trevor's own brutish strength that far exceeded any other human. With just two attacks, Dracula was able to inflict severe wounds on Sypha that would not only had to be bandaged for a length of time but would remain as scars, even breaking through her ice shield and injuring her cleanly and sending her flying, despite Sypha's greater physical resilience than normal humans.
- Supernatural mobility and dexterity: Despite his towering size, Dracula is able to move at vast speeds and with incredible grace and react at immense speeds. He could easily scale down walls, dodge several arrows fired by an expert marksman, and blitz and slaughter several humans in a matter of moments with ease and even managed to overtake Alucard despite Alucard's own vast speed. Even while weakened by not drinking for months, Dracula remained overwhelmingly fast, to where he was able to easily toy with Alucard, casually catching his sword before it could stab his heart and then easily dodging his sword attacks before blocking and easily punching his son aside before he could react. Dracula also managed to easily blitz Trevor and punch him before he could react twice and casually dodge Trevor's close-quarter attacks before catching and tossing him aside. He also moved so fast Sypha was barely able to shield herself. Even after having sustained visible damage from his fight with Trevor, Sypha and Alucard, Dracula was still more than fast enough to successfully overwhelm Alucard, even with Alucard using his full teleportation-like speed, able to counter and return blows quickly enough to steadily overwhelm Alucard in their air-battle before landing on the ground, proceeding to attack Alucard so fast he was unable to attack Dracula unless he had been hit first and soon overwhelming his son to where he hit him before he could even stand.
- Supernatural durability, resilience and stamina: Dracula has massive levels of supernatural durability, endurance and stamina that allows him to participate in prolonged battles while exerting himself and taking little damage from enemies attacks and even quickly weaving off attacks that do damage him with little-to-no exhaustion. As such, Dracula was able to easily slaughter all humans who had challenged him in a city all-night and remain at full shape by morning. He was even able to withstand not drinking blood for several months with no fatigue or thirst and remain fully capable: Hits from Trevor, a notably very physically strong human, did not even budge Dracula, and being stabbed through the hand and then having fire shot at his face did no damage on him. Not even showing any pain and simply surprise when Sypha impaled his legs with ice to keep him down for Trevor to use the Morning Star whip, he was able to survive the attack with only meager damage and then recovered from having his own massive Dark Inferno being blown back at him by Sypha and Alucard without any lasting harm. He also withstood Alucard's blows with little harm to himself and even many high-velocity blows from Alucard's teleportation speed only served to irritate him.
- Immunity to normal vampire weaknesses: Apparently due to his sheer power, Dracula is extremely resilient and even outright immune to the weaknesses of normal vampires: He mocks the idea of silver, crosses and garlic having any effect on him, calling them superstitious, and confidently states they would not help Lisa. Dracula also traveled on foot through the world for many years with no problem dealing with sunlight. His immunity to fire and holy manipulation was such that even in a weakened state, Trevor and Sypha employing such magics at high levels were incapable of harming him at all. Godbrand and Carmilla also revealed that Dracula is able to resist the thirst of blood common among vampires to a great extent, such that in his depression over Lisa's death, he sat on his library without drinking any blood for months and yet they still believe that it won't weaken him much and he indeed proved to retain extraordinary power when he was forced to finally fight directly. It is also shown that even staking or decapitation can't kill him: It was only in his weakened state that Alucard was able to stake Dracula in the heart and cause him to enter a desiccated state, which doesn't outright kill him and Trevor only decapitated him after he had been staked.
- Immortality: Dracula is immortal and cannot die of old age. The specifics of his immortality are not yet clear, but it is evident it keeps him in his physical prime, remaining unchanged by the ages.
- Command of vampires and the night-horde: Dracula's supreme power is respected by every vampire and monster. When he calls, demons answer without disobedience and vampires must at least heed the call. Dracula has built a strong relationship with his two forgemasters, Hector and Isaac, allowing him to create an army of night monsters that heed his every command. Vampire lords decide for themselves if they are loyal to Dracula but none would dare openly oppose him before preparing extensively.
- Magic: Attributed to his extraordinarily long lifespan and accumulation of knowledge, Dracula is highly well-versed and trained in the arts of magic: In addition to his inventions being extremely scientifically advanced, Dracula has also applied magic into his inventions, having enchanted his castle himself. His magical acumen was such that he surpassed the powers of Sypha Belnades, an immensely powerful Speaker Magician, noticeably, to where she could only lock down his castle when he wasn't actively controlling it and a spell from his proved too much for her to overcome alone.
- Teleportation: Dracula possesses a magical device that he can interact with to teleport his castle, which he can control the impact released to either be soft or capable of explosive force that could easily heavily damage cities. He also displayed the ability to use mirrors as portals, transporting Isaac to the dessert he came from.
- Astral projection: Dracula has the ability to use mirrors to magically send a projection of himself, which he can do in either the form of fires or flocks of crows.
- Elemental control: Dracula has tremendous control over the elements, which he used to easily destroy Targoviste.
- Pyrokinesis: Out of all the elements Dracula can control, his most powerful appears to be fire. He can transform his body into flames and manifest fire from the sky to unleash powerful meteors. He even cast a powerful fire spell in the form of a huge burning ball of molten lava-like fire that was so potent that Sypha's own power over fire was barely able to slow it down, even with Trevor backing her, and it took Alucard pushing the ball with his sword and Sypha's magic influence to just deflect it back at Dracula.
- Aerokinesis: Dracula can create powerful tornadoes and he was shown to mix them with fire to create fiery cyclones.
- Electrokinesis: Dracula was capable of releasing powerful surges of electricity in his anger and unleashing a thunderstorm.
- Levitation: Dracula has the ability to defy gravity and hover above ground. He can move through the air at vast speeds superior to his son, outpacing and beating his son to submission fairly quickly to the ground.
Abilities[]
- Master hand-to-hand combatant/martial artist: With his millennia worth of experience combined with his extraordinary physical power, Dracula was a martial artist of phenomenally deadly, literately unrivaled prowess in combat. His fighting style has shown to be savage but very methodical, able to make maximum usage of both his beyond extraordinary physical power and experience to easily deflect attacks from even the most talented of fighters and striking powerful blows with pinpoint accuracy, even able to effectively make use of his sheer sharp claws to deliver grievous damage. His perfectly aimed punches and claw slashes combined with his extreme speed and strength meant that he could easily defeat and kill with a single attack and even opponents at range can be easily reached and slayed in a matter of moments. He could single-handedly slaughter many merchants effortlessly and easily defeat Alucard, a master swordsman, in combat. Even while weakened due to blood deprivation and also having not engaged in combat for a long time, Dracula was still an extraordinarily skilled and lethal opponent, killing all rebel vampires effortlessly. His prowess in combat even allowed him to effectively engage Trevor Belmont, Alucard and Sypha Belnades and overwhelm them simultaneously: Capable of separating them despite their teamwork, he easily toyed around Alucard's sword attacks before effortlessly knocking him out of the fight for a while with a single punch after catching his sword swing with ease and proceeded to completely outmatch Trevor in hand-to-hand combat, downing him on both occasions with a single hit and leaving him helpless to fight back, and even when Trevor armed himself with his whip, Dracula still had the upper hand, forcing him to dodge while countering all of Trevor's attacks, before he soon tossed him aside. Against the powerful Speaker magician Sypha, Dracula landed several severe injuries on her despite her efforts to defend herself with her magic. Only being overwhelmed when attacked by the Morning Star whip and his fireball deflected back at him, even after enduring such attacks, Dracula managed to maintain a decisive advantage against Alucard in both power and skill, skillfully countering most of Alucard's blows while landing several blows that quickly rattled Alucard to submission, to where his well-trained son was soon left unable to fight back effectively.
- Genius-level intellect: Dracula, having been an ancient immortal who had collected ages worth of forgotten knowledge and innovated on them, is easily the most intelligent and knowledgeable being in the world's history, to the point that Alucard called him "a repository of centuries of learning" and knowledge and noted an immeasurable amount of wealth of knowledge would be lost with his death. He was also an incredible teacher, as displayed by how he quickly and efficiently molded both Lisa and Alucard into highly well-educated individuals. It has been acknowledged that even with the knowledge of the Belmonts and the castle, Alucard would not truly rival Dracula.
- Charisma and master leader: Despite his lack of charm and feral nature, Dracula, due to centuries of experience and knowledge, was still an excellent leader who was able to command and rule over every vampire and monster on Earth, at one point leading them to easily decimate an entire town and seemingly maintaining their absolute respect and loyalty for decades while leading them from the shadows. Dracula also proved to be quite charismatic at good times, as shown by how he was able to easily earn the respect and loyalty of the forgemasters Hector and Isaac. Indeed, when Dracula decided to finally exterminate humanity, all monsters and vampires were quick to obey his call and join together to form a powerful army. Despite his depression over Lisa's death preventing him from leading his war on mankind much, he was still able to command the faith and respect of his forgemasters Hector and Isaac to where Hector only turned on him when he realized Dracula was intent on exterminating all humanity while Isaac remained absolutely loyal and willing to give his life for him and even after Dracula's death, he was still determined to avenge his master out of genuine loyalty to him. Likewise, Dracula was still able to keep the respect and loyalty of many other vampires to where they fought Carmilla's rebels for him.
- Master scientist/engineer: During his immortal life, Dracula had become an extremely brilliant genius scientist, engineer and technologist, and is the foremost expert in the world on many fields. His castle, which is strongly implied to have been constructed by Dracula himself, contains several marvelous and futuristic technologies, such as electricity and steam-based machinery, some even being beyond the technology of the 21st century. His mastery of anatomy and chemistry was particularly sought after by Lisa and he managed to teach her such high-level medical science that she became the greatest doctor in her town ahead of her time and helped and saved many, even those who were deemed a lost cause.
Trivia[]
- Despite Dracula not being an incarnation of the demonic force known as Chaos as he was in the games, he is one of the most powerful vampires in the show's universe to date due to his age and incredibly vast knowledge of science and sorcery. To compare, in the games Trevor, Sypha and Alucard can defeat Dracula by either working together or individually, while in the animated series, even a weakened Dracula was able to handle their combined efforts with ease, only losing once he realized he was beating his own son to death. It's indicated by Alucard that his weakened state was the only chance they had to defeat him and had Dracula been at full power, they would have lost the fight for sure.
- In addition, the Dracula of the animated series is noticeably more intelligent than the original game series, as his knowledge of science was exemplary, he is known to be well-versed in philosophy, and he could create advanced technology, which far exceeded any intellectual accomplishments of the Dracula of the game series.
- Unlike his video game incarnations, the animated series version of Dracula does not return to his goals of devastation and genocide after being resurrected, having decided to return to living peacefully with Lisa and healing from the insanity, trauma and rage he had suffered when she died. As a result, he is one of a very few villains to be given a happy ending.
External Links[]
- Dracula on the Castlevania Wiki.
