M*O*N*S*T*A*A*HMaximum Observation and/or Nullification of Supernatural Terrors Autonomous Agents Headquarters |
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Forward This timeline was provided to MONSTAAH by our new, mysterious, freelance, operative known only as THE ACOLYTE. When this young man informed me that our MONSTAAH Timeline was overlooking many key events that involved the supernatural creatures of which we chronicle, we were of course skeptical. However through his persistence and initiative he was able to show proof that secrets were being divulged in the meduim known as 'Video Games'. How the creators of said games were able to obtain so much information that we at MONSTAAH were not privy to remains an enigma, as does the fact that they reveal this dangerous knowledge in such a manner. Whatever the case, the evidence of the accuracy of Acolyte's research holds up, and has caused quite a stir amongts MONSTAAH scholers. As we research this timeline, on an event by event, case, we will begin to incorperate it into the Main MONSTAAH timeline. Until then, study the Castlevania timeline, as presented here, for your selves and perhaps you might find more clues to help MONSTAAH explain any inconsistances between this timeline and the established MONSTAAH research.
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Some parts of creating a chronology for Konami's Castlevania saga have proven relatively difficult, due mostly to contradictory information. Konami has been very inconsistent with their Castlevania information. The manual of Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse, for one, states that Trevor Belmont is the great grandfather of Simon, but it was later shown that there is a two hundred year time difference between them, making the notion impossible. Originally, Konami had stated that Dracula rises every one hundred years after his last death, but taking the setting of the games' years, this would imply there is always some loyal follower of the Count or other ready to resurrect him or conjure a soul clone. The official timeline from Konami Japan (which might be subject to change) has formed most of the core of the information in this chronology as has information from Kurt Kalata's Castlevania Dungeon, some admirable theories put forth by Mr. P of Mr. P's Castlevania Page, and then followed by my own conjectures and beliefs. I have had to adjust some of the years towards the late nineteenth century. This is to keep pace with the events of the Dracula novel in the WNU (Castlevania 5 Bloodlines states that Dracula was killed by Quincey Morris in 1897, but in the Newtonverse, it is actually ten years earlier). Excluded in this timeline are Simon Belmont's appearances in the videogames Konami World 1 and 2 (until further notice at least), his highly irreverent role in the cartoon Captain N: The Game Master, the Castlevania parody games Kid Dracula 1 and 2 and various other references to the Castlevania series, sly and comedic mostly, in other Konami games such as Metal Gear Solid and Snatcher to name a few. I am still not sure at this point whether the Belmonts have been fighting the real Dracula, his soul clones, or a mix of both, all this time. Any and all conjectures are welcome. |
| Legend
GB = Gameboy GBA = Gameboy Advance MSX = MSX Home Computer NES = Nintendo Entertainment System SNES = Super Nintendo Entertainment System SGEN = Sega Genesis SONX6800 = Sony X68000 PCE = PC Engine PS = Sony Playstation SSAT= Sega Saturn N64 = Nintendo 64 |
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At some point or other in the past, Dracula's love is a woman named Lisa, the doctor of a certain village in Transylvania. Their son is the dhampire Adrian Tepes. Years later, on suspicion of being a witch, Lisa is burned at the stake to the horror of her son, but she pleads with him not to succumb to his vampiric side and not to prey on humans despite their deed. The death of Lisa is one of the things that will lead Dracula to wage his eternal vendetta on mankind. Among the first things he does is makes an eternal pact of darkness with the Grim Reaper himself, who becomes a good friend and frequent minion of the Prince of Darkness. 1.
1. The Grim Reaper, Death itself, could possibly be a dark entity but not necessarily evil. It's probable that it is merely greedy, hence it could have accepted Vlad's pact of darkness as a way of claiming scores of souls for itself and in turn serving the Count with its power. This pact ensured the Grim Reaper's appearance in nearly every future Castlevania adventure, as well being the second recurring boss in the entire series besides the Count. |
| 1433 |
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Sonia Belmont is born in a remote area of Romania. As she matures, she is seen to possess extraordinary powers and is trained in the arts of combat by her grandfather. All that while, she is told her powers are meant "for a higher purpose and not yourself." |
| 1450 |
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GB (Castlevania Legends) On her seventeenth birthday, the Poltergeist King 2. awards Sonia Belmont her with the Vampire Killer, also revealing that it is her fate to end Count Dracula's reign and to vanquish all evil. Sonia meets Adrian Tepes AKA Alucard, son of Dracula and Lisa, and they fall in love. Later, both separately invade Castlevania. Sonia defeats Alucard in battle, proving to him she can and must be the one to destroy Dracula. Dracula is slain for the first time and Castlevania crumbles, but not before he vows to return. 3.
3. The real Vlad became Dracula after his supposed death in 1476, according to the WNU, hence the Dracula of this adventure could not have been the real one. As of now I have no solid explanation as to the identity of this 'Dracula' Sonia was fighting in 1450. The Dracula X Rondo of Blood manual however states that Dracula is around 800 years old. While I am prepared to disregard this in favor of the WNU theories and the life of the real Vlad Dracula, the possibility of this being true still exists.
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| 1451 |
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Conjecture: Trevor Belmont is born. He is trained in the ways of vampire hunting by his mother. Somehow, the union between his supposed father Alucard (a dhampire) and his mother Sonia (a superhuman perhaps of angel descent) awakened no vampiric qualities in the child, except perhaps the ability to sense the undead. |
| 1476 |
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NES (Castlevania 3 Dracula's Curse) Dracula is resurrected by his followers and begins to wreak havoc once more. Trevor Belmont reclaims the Vampire Killer from the Poltergeist King, to be with the Belmont family permanently from then on. He journeys to Wallachia and begins his quest against Dracula. Along the way, the sorceress Sypha Belnades, the thief Grant Dinesti (of relation to the Tepes family's enemies, the Dinestis), and Alucard who has sensed his father's return and has awakened from eternal slumber (it is highly unlikely Trevor knew he was meeting his own father) join him. Their combined might brings down the Count, giving him his first century long sleep. Grant sets to help rebuild the destruction caused by Dracula while Alcuard returns to eternal slumber. Conjecture: Trevor Belmont and Sypha Belnades marry. |
| 1576 |
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GB/ARC (Castlevania Adventure/Haunted Castle) Dracula rises and kidnaps the newly wedded wife of Christopher Belmont, descendant of Trevor and Sypha. Christopher sets forth to defeat him and save his (unnamed) wife. Realizing he would be killed again, Dracula retreats and fakes his death, with the castle crumbling and Christopher believing the Count dead. Dracula decides to bide his time and regain his energies for revenge. 5.
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| 1577 |
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Birth of Soleiyu Belmont, son of Christopher. |
| 1591 |
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GB (Castlevania 2 Belmont's Revenge) On Soleiyu's fourteenth birthday, the time of his vampire hunter initiation ceremony, the Count uses his accumulated energy to possess Soleiyu and empower himself. Four castles rise in a lake, with the main castle of Dracula in the middle. Christopher invades the castles and defeats Dracula again, fighting and freeing his son from Dracula's spell prior to it. |
| 1691 |
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NES and etc./MSX/SNES (Castlevania/Vampire Killer/Super Castlevania 4) Dracula returns from his second century long sleep. The newest Belmont named Simon, probable great grandson of Soleiyu, moves to slay him. 6. He succeeds, but before Dracula dies, he lays a curse on Simon: that the wounds Simon suffered in their battle would never heal and that he would die a very slow and excruciating death.
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| 1698 |
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NES (Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest) Simon is plagued with chest pains and never-healing wounds ever since his fight with the Count. He is told that he has been cursed by Dracula and that the only way to lift it would be to gather the Count's five body parts, which have been scattered all over Transylvania by his loyal minions and hidden in five of Dracula's mansions, and burn them. 7. Simon does this and fights a zombified Dracula and triumphs. 7. Once more, Konami's inconsistency is shown. In the 1698 adventure, the relics of the Count that Simon found and collected were Vlad's Eye, Rib, Heart, Ring, and Nail. Fifty years later, in Harmony of Dissonance, the relics Maxim and later Juste recovered were the same but an extra, the Fang of Vlad had been added, making them six relics. Forty nine years later, in Symphony of the Night, the Vlad relics that Alucard gathered were the same as in Harmony of Dissonance, but the Nail had been taken away. |
| 1730 |
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Juste Belmont, grandson of Simon, is born. |
| 1746 |
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Juste continues the Belmont line of hunters and inherits the Vampire Killer whip at age sixteen. His friend Maxim Kischine, wanting both to surpass and to redeem his friend from his destiny, sets out ostensibly on a training expedition but in reality follows the legend of Simon Belmont's quest and recovers Dracula's body parts. His dark side (where all his evil selfish desires reside) is awakened, possessed by Dracula's soul. Two Demon Castles appear and the relics are separated throughout both. |
| 1748 |
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GBA (Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance/Concerto of a Midnight Sun) Maxim in his evil side kidnaps Lydie Erlanger, hoping to use the energy of a loved one to unite the castles. He returns home covered in blood and informs Juste that Lydie has been kidnapped, also stating that he has only vague recollections of the kidnapping. Juste and Maxim separately invade the castles as Maxim slowly recovers his memories and as Dracula's hold over his soul grows stronger. Juste recovers Dracula's relics, fights and frees a possessed Maxim from his alter self, rescues Lydie, and defeats Dracula's phantom. |
| 1773 |
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Birth of Richter Belmont (probable son of Juste Belmont and Lydie Erlanger) and Tara the village nun. |
| 1775 |
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Birth of Annette Renard (member of a family of distant relation to the Belmonts) and Iris the daughter of the town of Verossa's village doctor. |
| 1780 |
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Birth of Maria Renard, sister of Annette. |
| 1792 |
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PCE (Dracula X Rondo of Blood) The dark priest Shaft and his attendant cult resurrect Dracula. The Count's minions attack the town of Verossa and kidnap Annette, Maria, Tara, and Iris. Richter Belmont goes to rescue them, freeing Maria first who assists him in saving the others. Dracula is killed while Shaft is merely beaten, only to return in due time. Conjecture: Richter Belmont and Annette Renard marry and have a son Michael Gelhart Belmont, who later in life will change his surname to Schneider to protect against enemies of the Belmont clan and from Dracula's followers. |
| 1796 |
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Shaft resurfaces and mind controls Richter Belmont to help him bring back Dracula. Richter vanishes. With no knowledge of what had happened to him, Maria Renard, now sixteen and a vampire hunter in her own right, sets out to find him. |
| 1797 |
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PS/SSAT (Castlevania Symphony of the Night/Dracula X Nocturne in the Moonlight) Castlevania materializes out of the mist and becomes the focus of Maria Renard's search. 8. Alucard awakens, likely having sensed the shift in the balance of power, and attacks the castle. He encounters Maria Renard along the way. Alucard later frees Richter Belmont from Shaft's spell, then moves on to the second inverted castle, collecting Dracula's body parts to open the way to the room whence he will be resurrected into. Shaft is killed and Alucard defeats his father Dracula, telling him his mother's last words: "She said: 'Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm. For theirs is already a hard lot.' She also said to tell you that she would love you for all eternity."9. Alucard returns again to his eternal slumber, but Maria, having fallen in love with him, goes after him. Conjecture: Alucard and Maria Renard DO have a relationship, and their descendant is Eric Lecarde. 10. Conjecture: Richter, perhaps guilty from not being strong enough to fight Shaft's mind spell and from being partly responsible for making Alucard fight his father, passes the whip to a younger sister who will marry a man surnamed Graves.
8. I must note here that Dracula's castle never looks, at the very least exactly, the same upon each return to the Earth realm. The layout and design of the castle as well as the monsters inhabiting it change with every return. As Alucard explained to Maria Renard in SOTN, Castlevania "... Is a creature of Chaos. It may take many incarnations." 9. It is quite a mystery to know that Dracula continued to return and plague the world despite his apparent repentance. My theory is that it is part of the curse. 10. The release of Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight sparked the possibility of Eric Lecarde's descent from Alucard. In the game, among the plethora of weapons the player finds will be one "Alucard Spear", which just so happens to look and perform (and name-wise, sound) much like the "Alcarde Spear" Eric uses as his main weapon in CV 5 Bloodlines. This hints that "Alcarde Spear" could have been a misinterpretation of the Konami of America translators, and is thus actually "Alucard Spear". In addition, the Japanese language lacks the letter 'L' and is thus substituted with 'R'. This said, Maria's surname may not even be 'Renard' but actually 'Lenard'. If she and Alucard had started a family in Spain and decided to give them a surname, it wouldn't be far-fetched to believe they combined their names (Alucard and R/Lenard) to create 'Lecarde'. Such a conjecture, assuming Alucard was Trevor Belmont's father, would make the Lecardes relatives of the Belmont clan. Again, I believe Maria's possible begetting of a child by a dhampire (like Sonia centuries ago) somehow resulted in a non-vampiric superhuman. |
| 1820 |
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Dracula rises by unknown means. A vampire hunting couple surnamed Graves (the mother likely Richter Belmont's sister) and their close friend and colleague Maurice Baldwin (of distant enough relation to the Belmonts to be called a 'friend') defeat him before he reaches full power, but at the cost of the Graves couple's death. The Vampire Killer ends in possession of Maurice. He adopts the Graves' young son Nathan and trains him and his own son Hugh in the ways of vampire hunting. 11. Though Hugh is the superior of the two, Maurice eventually awards the Vampire Killer to Nathan, much to Hugh's jealousy (narrated during the course of Circle of the Moon). 11. I conjecture that both Nathan and Hugh have Belmont blood in them (though I believe Nathan's is likely of the more direct lineage) and are therefore both qualified to wield the whip. Maurice Baldwin's seeing the rashness and hot-headedness of his son Hugh (in spite of the fact that Nathan could never beat Hugh in training) was what led to his giving the whip to Nathan. |
| 1827 |
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Birth of Reinhart Schneider, son of Michael Gelhart Schneider. |
| 1830 |
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GBA (Castlevania Circle of the Moon) In her castle in Austria, Countess Carmilla 12. starts a ceremony to resurrect Dracula. Maurice Baldwin, Hugh Baldwin, and Nathan Graves move to stop her, but are too late. Nathan and Hugh end up separated from Maurice, who is taken prisoner to empower Dracula. Both start separate quests through the castle though the focus of the tale is Nathan's. Hugh's anger towards Nathan is turned against him and Dracula mind controls him and empowers that anger. Nathan frees Hugh from the spell, then saves Maurice Baldwin and defeats Dracula. Conjecture: Perhaps feeling he is not worthy and/or ready to wield the Vampire Killer, though he proved himself well with it, Nathan returns the whip to his older cousin Michael Gelhart Schneider. Michael must be considerably aged by this time to realize someone must carry on past himself.
12. This could well be the Carmilla of JS LeFanu's novella of the same name. Its possible that she survived her battle with Nathan Graves and returned in time for her appearance to the girl Laura in Styria. Carmilla has also had other run-ins with the Belmont family, notably in 1698 (Simon Belmont) and 1792 (Richter Belmont). To further support this theory, there is a scene in JS LeFanu's novella where the heroine Laura and her father, by this time with Carmilla living under their roof, receive a portrait of the Countess Mircalla Karnstein (really Carmilla) that is precisely dated 1698 (and the novella itself is set in the mid-1800's, about a century and a half away). I see this as a deliberate move by Koji Igarashi to connect the novella to the Castlevania saga. |
| 1840 |
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Birth of Carrie Fernandez to a gypsy band, descendants of a Spanish family of powerful sorcerers. The patriarchal figurehead of this family later falls under Dracula's curse and annihilates much of his own kin. Carrie and her parents are among the few survivors, but are later burned at the stake by fearful villagers believing the two to be demons. Carrie is hidden and adopted by an unknown woman, and she matures with an inherent fear and hatred of adults. |
| 1842 |
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Reinhart Schneider leaves home to train in the Carpathian Mountains. His father Michael Gelhart has the village priest Samuel seal the Vampire Killer away for safekeeping until Reinhart is worthy enough to return for it. |
| 1844 |
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N64 (Castlevania Legacy of Darkness) The Grim Reaper, the vampire sorceress Actrise (a member of Carrie Fernandez's bloodline), and the vampire Gilles de Rais (perhaps a vampirized version of the historical Gilles de Rais) plot to resurrect Count Dracula. They attack a village and capture several women, among them a girl named Ada, for the purpose of human sacrifice. The werewolf Cornell 13., a native of this village, returns home from abroad and vows to save Ada. Along the way he does battle with his fellow man-beast, friend and rival Ortega, who had been responsible for leading the dark forces to their village. He also manages to rescue a boy named Henry Oldrey from Gilles de Rais, who had vampirized Henry's mother and father. Cornell is able to save Ada and defeat the Count, at the cost of projecting his werewolf power into the holding crystal whence Ada was contained. Conjecture: The Grim Reaper and Actrise however manage to recover this werewolf power-containing crystal and ensure the Count's eventual return. Dracula's soul is infused into the body of a young boy.
13. Cornell's werewolf power is very comparable to that of Luke Talbot's of the cartoon Monster Force. Both have near-total control over their own transformation. |
| 1852 |
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N64 Castlevania 64 Attacks on villages happen once more with the Count's full return. Reinhart Schneider returns from the Carpathian Mountains and claims the Vampire Killer whip from Priest Samuel to fulfill his destiny. The village of Carrie Fernandez is attacked by the evil forces and her foster mother is slain. The psychological trauma of this event unleashes Carrie's inner magic powers, and she too swears to destroy Count Dracula. Henry Oldrey, the boy saved by Cornell years ago, returns as a holy knight (outfit somewhat resembling a Templar) to lend a hand in fighting the Count though his main purpose is to rescue six children held captive throughout the Demon Castle. In the course of their quest, they encounter people such as Renon the demon salesman and Charlie Vincent 14. the vampire hunter. Reinhart meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman named Rosa, Dracula's gardener who is under his curse. Reinhart later fights and kills her in her vampire form. The three also save a young boy named Malus, who is later revealed to be the Count Dracula in disguise. With the help of Carrie and Henry, Reinhart destroys Dracula again. Rosa is freed from the curse and returns to life. 15. Conjecture: Reinhart and Rosa marry, and later migrate to Ireland and change their name to Morris. Their son or grandson must be the adventurer Quincey Morris. 16. 17.
15. It occurred to me there could have been a connection to the Cthulhu mythos shown in the 1856 event, for the Necronomicon is very prominently displayed at one stage in the game. In addition, though as of now I consider this a trivial connection, among the myriad monsters Alucard faced in the 1797 event was a certain squid headed winged creature by the name of Ctulhu. Perhaps Dracula had managed to summon a shadow of the submerged being to serve him. 16. Quincey must have tried to dodge his Belmont heritage, hence he never became a vampire hunter though he must have kept the ancestral whip and the other traditional weapons anyway. The fact that he was, in the end of the novel, the one to kill Dracula, shows that destiny -did- catch up with him after all. 17. It is my understanding that Prof. Matthew Baugh theorized that Cliff Marsland is the nephew of Quincey Morris. * Since the Castlevania storyline states that the Morrises are descended from the Belmont clan, this would imply so would Cliff. Having Belmont blood in Cliff would explain his being a successful soldier during the First World War and later a valuable agent of the Shadow. Cliff, however, likely neither knows nor cares about his ancestry, seeing how he values his loyalty to his chief above all else. * See AGENT
IN THE SHADOWS: THE LIFE AND CAREER OF CLIFF MARSLAND |
| 1882 |
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May 3 Birth of Eric Lecarde, probable descendant of Alucard and Maria Renard. |
| 1885 |
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December 12 Birth of John Morris, son of Quincey Morris (John must be the spawn of a first marriage, for Quincey was courting Lucy Westenra early in the Dracula novel, making Quincey a widower) |
| 1887 |
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The events of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel (the 1897 date provided in the Bloodlines manual is in error, for the novel's events in the Newtonverse have been set to occur in 1887). Quincey Morris, secretly of Belmont lineage, is killed by gypsies while slaying Dracula. His son John and his friend Eric Lecarde were somehow watching at this point and observed the whole incident 18. This sparks their vow to "rid the planet of the evil creatures of the underworld." John trains in the ways of Belmont vampire hunting like his forefathers did before him, as does Eric. 18. How this is possible for a two year old and a five year old, I don't know yet. It's probable John and Eric were under the care of someone else, and that Quincey had brought both boys with him when he journeyed to England to seek Lucy Westenra's hand. |
| 1917 |
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SGEN (Castlevania 5 Bloodlines) An amateur witch named Drolta Tzuentes, practicing black magic in the ruins of Dracula's castle, accidentally resurrects Elizabeth Bartley (or more accurately Elizabeth Bathory), a vampire descendant of Dracula 19. In turn, Bartley seeks to revive her ancestor Dracula to conquer the world. John Morris and Eric Lecarde hunt her down across Europe following the un-death of Eric's girlfriend Gwendolyn. The adventure climaxes to a final showdown at Castle Proserpina in England, with John and Eric fighting a Dracula resurrected at the last minute.
Bathory was born in the shadows of the Carpathian Mountain foothills in 1560, to a prominent noble family noted for its sexual deviates, sadists, Satanists, and other unsavory lot. When she later married Ferencz Nadasdy (scion of a prominent Protestant family) in 1575, she chose the gloomy and remote Csejthe Castle for their home and had four children between 1585 and 1595. By this time, Bathory was already taking pleasure in inflicting pain on servant girls, especially bosomy ones. After her husband's death in 1604, her vanity and beauty led to her wish to find the secret of eternal youth, and believed she had found it when a servant girl she struck bled on her and Bathory observed her skin seemed whiter and fresher when she wiped it off. From then on, her servants helped her round up peasant girls and devise various gruesome tortures to bleed them while Bathory would bathe in the torrent. When middle age came despite her actions, she turned to blue-blooded women. Eventually the bodies became difficult to dispose, and some were left right out in the fields where villagers would eventually see them and suspect the Countess. She was finally questioned by the Count Gyorgy Thorzo around Christmas 1610, and upon finding evidence in her castle, her accomplices were arrested and confessed to the murders. The body count was no less than 650. Bathory's cohorts were executed, but since she herself was nobility, she was spared the execution of a common criminal and was instead walled up alive in her own castle. She died there August 21, 1614. Her exploits had earned her the name "The Blood Countess". Curiously enough, she was actually a distant relative of Vlad Tepes Dracula. |
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Connections to the Wold Newton Universe One very notable thing about the Castlevania videogames is that they blend together many popular monsters of not only film, but literature and world mythology besides. Aside from Count Dracula who is almost always the main villain in each game, the Grim Reaper, the Frankenstein monster, JS LeFanu's Carmilla, Count Orlock of the film Nosferatu (called Olrox in CV SOTN likely to prevent copyright issues), Scylla and Cyclops and Charon and Cerberos of Greek mythology, and sundry others make appearances all throughout the series. For Dracula to have such diverse and powerful forces at his command truly solidifies and attests to his vast power as Lord of the Vampires and one of the mightiest Wold Newton villains. I have also found possible connections to Walter Gibson's The Shadow. See notes 14 and 16 for details. |
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A quick reference
for the years of Dracula's deaths and the fighters involved.
1576 Christopher Belmont 1591 Christopher Belmont 1691 Simon Belmont 1698 Simon Belmont 1748 Juste Belmont, Maxim Kischine 1792 Richter Belmont, Maria Renard 1797 Alucard, Maria Renard, Richter Belmont 1830 Nathan Graves, Hugh Baldwin, Maurice Baldwin 1844 Cornell 1852 Reinhart Schneider, Carrie Fernandez, Henry
Oldrey 1917 John Morris, Eric Lecarde |
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