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@writingfish
You know what I’d like to see in the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow franchise?
A prequel.
Yes, I know, technically this reboot is something of a prequel in its own right - it explores the background and transformation of Gabriel Belmont to Dracul, Prince of Darkness. But I’d like to see a prequel.
Focused on Dracula’s mother.
Just - give me Gabriel’s mother. Gabriel’s mother, whose husband (an illegitimate member of house Cronqvist) died in a monster attack, desperately trying to buy time as his wife clutched their young son in her arms and ran. Give me Dracul’s mother, who was chased by wolves and demons until she was finally brought to bay, face-to-face with an Acolyte who reveals to her that said child will grow to be a threat to their Master, that they will kill him now to remove the threat -
Give me Dracul’s mother, who looks head-on into the shard of the Mirror of Fate that the Acolyte dangles in front of her eyes. Who sees - everything. Her son. His despair. His transformation. His murder of - of innocents, enemies, everyone who gets in his way. His own killing and subsequent transformation of his own son.
Give me Dracula’s mother who does not give a flying fuck and stabs the Acolyte with the kitchen knife she had strapped to her belt before stealing its horse and running for it.
I would love an entire game where you play as a young, desperate woman - no supernatural powers, no combat skills but the ones she earns through blood and sweat and sheer dogged determination - as she runs from the hunters trying to kill her son. Solving puzzles, tricking her way past powerful-but-neutral forces, avoiding Brotherhood Knights and minor demons alike as she desperately tries to flee the country, to get to safety - and all the while, is trying to come to grips with the fact that, supposedly, her son will become the monster. It’s a moral question of intense proportions - this is her son, her baby, but he’s going to become one of the most hated figures on the planet, what is she supposed to do?
Give me Gabriel’s mother, who fights and bleeds and whose personal motto quickly becomes ‘There is no fate but what we make.’ Give me Dracul’s mother, who almost, almost makes it -
Except at the last moment, it comes down to a situation where it’s her or her son. Only one of them can live.
The cutscene is intense as Dracul’s mother holds her little-more-then-an-infant son. Who tells him that she will always, always love him. That she can hate what he does, but still be proud of him. That she can be sickened by his actions, but still love him. That maybe he won’t need his mother, maybe he won’t think much of her in the future, but she will still love him.
Always.
And then she turns and sacrifices herself, and there is a smile on her face as she pushes herself down the Acolyte’s blade to slice its throat with her simple kitchen knife. Because she knows that her son will live.
…and maybe, after the last of the credits roll, there is a brief, such a brief snapshot of Gabriel Belmont, Lord Dracul, as he raises his head suddenly before slowly turning to stare into the mirror of fate…
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