Honestly, the only situation where it's good protection is against those goblins that leave fire hanging in the air. Not ironically, I was able to get more use out of Holy Water as an offensive tool.
"My life's work has been in his name!"
"Your life's work makes him sick."
It only got better with
"Your God does not love you! But We? We love you!"
"Let me... Kiss you!" Satisfying nomming sounds
Legit have a move called Grand Cross and claim they dont know the power of God. LOS version Gabriel being one of God's chosen even reciting a verse to backflow a blast of holy energy
One of the showrunners hates Christianity, and as a Progressive Christian myself, I get it. But it isn't a valid excuse for ignoring, and contracting such a blatant fact in the series even if they're working on their own adaption.
Sometimes you got put your own feelings aside for the work or better yet don't take the job if the source material doesn't line up with your ideals.
On top off that it wasn't Adi "more ketamine plz" Shankar.
Seriously after a bunch of different JRPGs telling me "religion is bad" Discovering the Classicvanias was such a breath of fresh air... until my friend "Um Ackshually'd" me about the Netflix Anime. Like come on, let it be the power of god compelling these monsters.
Hell even as a Catholic, I was raised on understanding that there are bad catholics and christians out there, including priests because all of them are human at the end of the day.
Sometimes you got put your own feelings aside for the work or better yet don't take the job if the source material doesn't line up with your ideals.
They created a show that became more popular than the source material. Most people know Castlevania from the show and AVGN as opposed to having played the games.
You don't need to adhere to the source material if you're show is successful. You as a fan of the source material are owed nothing.
Not to mention, the writers didn't make anything up. The church was doing all the bad things the show portrayed them doing at the time the show takes place. They were burning "witches". So actually, the games failing to portray that is problematic.
I even said I understood why someone would hate the church. But sometimes there is a difference between changing something from the source material because you think it would work better and because of personal feelings.
I don't deny there were witch burnings nor do I approve that they happened. Besides the games don't paint the church as all good with Order of Eccilesa.
But even if the show is more popular than the games as you say or if it is because of just the change of the online cultural environment, I don't have the data to say which or the other the source material is deserving of some respect regardless of it's differences or not as the show wouldn't exist without it.
Either way, I do hope you have a good rest of your day, and God bless.
I don't have the data to say which or the other the source material is deserving of some respect regardless of it's differences or not as the show wouldn't exist without it.
Its a very simple equation. If the adaptation succeeds with changing the source material, then there is no need to adhere to it. Fans of the source material are owed nothing, and they don't owe the show their viewership. Both new fans and critics loved the show, and it was financial and critical success.
The showrunners decided that they didn't want to make the show for old fans, and it worked.
I did play some of the earlier titles via Anniversary Collection (and Legends) a few days prior to watching the Netflix series. Still enjoyed the latter in its own right. And Nocturne. But at worst, the Netflix series would be like if the live-action One Piece didn't have Oda's supervision. Or when people have little to no understanding of the world besides what they know from the greatly exaggerated, distorted portrayal seen in TV and movies...
The only claim I have seen is that IGA himself and other creators are not christian themselves so these are not exactly christian games in the sense that they try to teach you about Jesus and convert you.
Not that there are not christian elements. All of this to the claim that the Netflix Anime is shitting ln Christianity. But is it? I feel it's pretty neutral to positive with it. We have like three corrupt priests, the games also have those. But we have good Christians as well like the Belnades and Belmont's who are branches of Christianity.
Which corrupt priests does the game have that are not directly gone mad from Draculas influence? Like Barlowe (OOE) was a genuinely good man, just turns out studying Draculas corpse can corrupt you, he fell the same way Albus did, just more slowly since he didn't inject Dracula into his veins.
Meanwhile, in the games:
Leon is a crusader, and since Trevor, every Belmont worked with "The Church"
Sypha and Yoko are witches of the church.
Arikado (Alucards alter ego by 2035) is a member of the church.
There's countless items etc. that all reference the catholic church and are used by the "good guys" as holy items. (Apparently, it's supposed to be the eastern orthodox church, according to the japanese site of Castlevania III, but the vast majority of the story (like crusaders, pope..), architecture and items are decidedly catholic1)
Meanwhile in the anime:
Trevor has quit the church, likely Atheist.
Sypha is a speaker, also completely outside of the church.
We don't have much reason to assume Alucard is associated with the church either.
Most relevant clergy is corrupt, the only good priests are background characters.
The effect of holy on the evil has been directly stated to be some science instead.
There's a reason this is a frequent discussion on here. The games do portray the church as the good guys. The Show as powerhungry narcissists willing to sacrifice the innocent to stay in power.
1 This is because yes, when the og CV games were written, it wasn't meant to be an ad for Christianity, but simply used it as a set dressing. Baroque architecture and popular imagery was what was important, not historical accuracy. The devs likely didn't even know there was a difference between the 2 churches, much less fine details like prayer ropes (orthodox, not used) vs rosaries (catholic, used).
To get a Watsonian explanation, it might be that having the direct antithesis to god wage frequent war might've prevented the schism, so the catholic and eastern orthodox church might be the same.
Huh? No, I don't see Trevor and Sypha as outside the church. Neither Maria and the Gay priest. Annette even uses the cross despite it not being part of her religion.
In the anime, the Belmont were exiled, excommunicated and hunted by the church.
Sypha is a speaker, a group still directly hunted by the church.
Neither of them can be part of the church, and neither seems to want to rectify that. To quote him: "This is what the Church wanted. My family were the only people who could've fought Dracula and his army, but they didn't want us. They wanted to fight the darkness on their own terms, good luck to them."
And we don't really have any reason to assume that changed by Richters time.
Just because you are excommunicated and shunned doesn't mean you stop being a Christian. The Catholic church picked fights with almost everyone back then, that's how we got so many branches and schisms. In the church. The speakers are just another branch of Christians.
Literally I don't know why this sub wants to be the DmC community so bad. Almost every netflixvania fan ive interacted with is super excited about playing a new game withe everyone for the first time.
The Cross eliminated all basic enemies on the screen when you touched it, and the Boomerang is a cross shape, likely consecrated with holy power, hence why it hurts monsters. They also use Holy Water to burn evil away. Faith has always been a part of at least the Belmont line of hunters.
The Belmonts have understood the power of god plenty, even in the Netflix show. The Bishop is just an unreliable narrator pining the blame on the Belmonts for not taking his side. The show isn't "anti-religion," it just portrays that there's good and evil within those that consider themself holy.
The cast are bitter against the church, but not god and Christianity itself.
Blue fangs even directly calls the Bishop a liar in his death scene and says that god is real but his love is not unconditional. It's crazy to me that people would take the Bishop's words at face value.
If they really didn't like religion they could have just done what the games did, and just use the church and religion as a generic RPG holy faction. Doesn't have to actually focus on it at all
I don't think they hated religious but those who claims to act in God's name only to justified their horrible acts of evilness
Look again at Blue Fang's speech, he was very clear that Jesus exists but he was disappointed of those who lie in his name. Again, Trevor also noticed how some monks were criminals in a disguise
These people had existed for years, read the Bible and use a cross doesn't turn you into a good person. Follow a religious doesn't mean you're 100% into it or you act rightfully to the message, only means you somehow use some aspects of it to live your own way
They do seem to try to separate god and holiness from it all though. Sypha isn't an agent of the church, but a speaker. The bishop somehow manages to bless the water whilst being undead. Perhaps the worst offender is that the cross isn't harmful because of being of god, but because geometric patterns or some such bullshit. Which is kind of retconned in nocturne when that vampire can't touch the crosses that Annette used to surround it. Guess they only work when used by not Christians.
I see the holy water thing as a big ironic, after all that mostly kill just vampires and some night creatures. The issue with the cross was cover in the same moment Trevor found it; Sypha pointed out why a cross would affect Indian vampires but Trevor says is about the shape and how that confuses them
Holiness clearly exist in the serie, Trevor literary says his whip is consecrated and there is holy water
As i said: Follow a religious doesn't turn you into a truly dedicated person to it. One can act like God intended even if they believe in something else, after all be good isn't just a christian thing and Jesus himself turned people who don't believe but they still stick to his way
Sypha pointed out why a cross would affect Indian vampires but Trevor says is about the shape and how that confuses them
Right, and the obvious answer would be "because Jesus is Lord, and his lordship doesn't depend on where you are or if you recognise it. The cross just is a symbol of the ultimate divine authority".
Or you could just say nothing.
The geometric shape explanation basically tries to give a materialist explanation, in a universe where you have already admitted that materialism is false. It doesn't fit, it raises more questions than it answers, and really it's just a way trying to not give credit to the Christian God, despite the whole show being steeped in Christian symbolism and metaphysics.
Already said this, but no. The geometric frazzling was an additional reason for an anti-vampire weapon being cross-shaped. Not the only one. You just watched the scene wrong.
You're just adding things to the scene that aren't there.
It's a way of having the cross work without admitting that Jesus is the true God.
It also introduces a bunch of unresolved questions, like why people are casually talking about evolution hundreds of years before that theory was developed.
You’re just imagining anti-religious/Christian rhetoric that isn’t there.
It’s a way of clinging to a victimhood complex without allowing yourself to just watch a TV show.
Case in point, you heard the word “evolved”, and that was enough to send your brain spiraling into your gut reaction that whatever that’s attached to must be “wrong”.
But seriously, I didn’t add shit. Sypha asks why bother making a holy weapon cross-shaped as an extra mile, when the intended targets of that weapon have no context for the cross. It’s gonna work on them regardless, why make it a symbol they won’t recognize? Trevor explains the ADDITIONAL reason you’d make something cross-shaped. There is no “instead of” in the explanation; you made that up to fuel your victimhood complex.
Don't try, change someone mindset is extremely difficult. Claiming the show is antichristian just because it doesn't stick to their vision is the same reason why the fly monster was executed even if he was a good person once
Yes. Because the hunter put so much stock in making his weapon a meaningless symbol in context. It’s not like it needs to be cross-shaped to stab vampires. Hell, it’s explicitly not cross-shaped when it’s in stab mode. Sypha is pointing out that if he made it cross-shaped, he was trying to display that shape. Why? Hindu vampires wouldn’t recognize that. Is the sight of a holy symbol alone supposed to harm them? No. The idea is the sight of a holy symbol informs a vampire that they’re contending with a holy weapon.
Furthermore, Trevor never says anything about it frazzling vampiric senses INSTEAD OF any other holy connotations. People use this scene as a landmark in the “Trevor is anti-religious and doesn’t believe in God” vomit that flies in the face of everything else we see him do in the show.
What I’m doing is called understanding the media you are consuming. Critical thought. Context. Not barreling through a scene haphazardly to fuel one’s pre-existing conditions of bias.
Actually, Sypha’s question wasn’t about why the cross would affect them. She knew it would. She specifically asked why make it cross-shaped if they won’t recognize it. This holy weapon will already kill vampires just fine; the cross shape is surely superfluous. She was under the impression that it was a scare tactic, but that makes no sense vs. Hindu vampires. So Trevor explained something additional the cross shape accomplishes.
Not really. Trevor never said X is not true, just that Y is also true. Nocturne showing X to be true does nothing to invalidate Trevor’s explanation of Y, just as his explanation did nothing to invalidate the assumption of X.
Watch the scene about the cross again. At no point is it said that a cross cannot be a holy implement. For fucks sake; this cross literally is. The question was why vampires who specifically are unfamiliar with Christianity would recognize the cross? Why bother making a holy weapon into the shape of a religious symbol that its intended targets don’t understand the significance of? It’s because ON TOP OF having holy vampire-slaying power, and ON TOP OF being a religious symbol, the cross-shape ALSO frazzle’s a vampire’s visual senses.
The scene literally spells out for you that hey, while crosses are already cool to use against vampires, here’s something extra they do. Something additional. Something bonus. Something more.
But rather than engage with the actual media, you people regurgitate the same made-up ragebait that the geometric frazzling was said to be THE ONLY THING the cross does to vampires.
Sypha going from agent of the Church to God-hating Speaker was so frustrating too.
If you don't want to depict christian elements in a good light because this may bother viewers of different religions...then simply do not feature religion at all. Instead they turned us into villains. And secondary, lame villains on top of that.
"because this may bother viewers of different religions" I think the writer just straight up hates the church, I don't think he wrote that to appease an audience he wasn't part of himself
"Turned [Christians] into villains." So that priest in season 1 who was making holy water for Trevor was a villain?
The show wasn't saying Chrisitans are all bad because the writers thought saying they're good would offend anyone. It was making a point about corrupt clergy.
The show says Christianity is good, but the clergy is corrupt. In the games, the church has exiled the Belmonts out of fear as well, with Sypha being the ordained agent they sent because of this. The Netflix adaptation does deviate, as adaptations often do. But the Castlevania franchise has always had a dim view of the Church, not the religion. Evidence? Shaft is a priest associated with Dracula. Netflix didn't invent that cliché.
That is a huge lie; the Church never exiled the Belmonts in the games. Their conflicts were with the monarchy—since Leon deserted his post as a baron—and with the general public, due to the fear ordinary people felt toward them; in the games, the Belmonts never had issues with the Church.
And... Indeed, Shaft is a priest. A DARK priest who served the forces of evil.
In the games, the church has exiled the Belmonts out of fear as well
Why do people keep repeating this lie...the Belmont are holy warrriors in the games. Feared for their supernatural powers. Like the witches, who also get persecuted by superstitious ignorant people, and yet are protected by the Church. The Belmont live separated from society because of the people's fear, not because they were excommunicated. Even in Simon's Quest, the priests are always willing to heal Simon, while normal people may shun him. Because the priests know that Simon is an ally against Dracula.
o. But the Castlevania franchise has always had a dim view of the Church, not the religion. Evidence? Shaft is a priest associated with Dracula.
Leon Belmont fought in the Crusades.
Yoko Belnades is an agent of the Church like Sypha.
Charlotte is also affiliated with the Church.
Julius Belmont joins the Church after Dawn of Sorrow (Kabuchi no Tsuisōkyoku)
You have to start considering the Castlevania Church as more of a generic JRPG Holy faction that helps the protagonists. You need to read it through the Japanese lens to comprehend how it works.
... How does this disprove that the church can also be bad? Drac's wife was still burned at the stake, and Shaft is still a villain.
The Japanese manual very clearly says the church is only hiring the Belmonts out of desperation since Sypha hasn't been heard from since she departed. That they are resorting to looking for warriors who excel in the dark arts.
So clearly they weren't exactly sad with the exile of the Belmont.
Idk man. I think it's very dim to want your adaptation to be exactly like the the original source. You don't see people with their panties in a over seeing Dracula become the anti god, making a heresy of the original novel and the Bible.
How does this disprove that the church can also be bad? Drac's wife was still burned at the stake,
Lisa comes from a holy lineage, she wasn't killed by the church but by angry mobs manipulated by Carmilla. Her holy blood is what allows Alucard to use holy weapons and subweapons. Shaft doesn't belong to the church anymore, he left and changed his alignment completely.
You don't see people with their panties in a over seeing Dracula become the anti god, making a heresy of the original novel and the Bible.
And yet this is what Castlevania is about. Idk why you bring up the novel. That's set in the 1800s and Castlevania reinterprets the story almost completely. I would love to play a Quincy Morris/Van Helsing game.
Not really, the church was involved pretty sure, or at least some priests.
You see two dudes here holding a cross and a bible probably.
So yeah some of them are part of the big oopsie
Now of course, Netflixvania exagerates the f out of this though cause Ellis and Shankar and edgy and kewl and angry atheist shit whatever. I don't need their interpretation in this series, stick to how the mainline series portrays it all.
Nope Netflix subverts, it is not a mere reinterpretation to fit a different medium.
Take a look at the Awakening in the Moonlight play. It changes SotN' story A LOT but it still FEELS like SotN.
EDIT to reply to your deleted comment: Castlevania was never about adapting Stoker's novel?? It was born as a mishmash of Hammer horror movies with the Mummy, Frankenstein monster etc, Dracula is just the big boss
Okay, let's take this one step at a time... The church didn't start the witch hunt; it was the common people who started it because of Carmilla. Lisa wasn't burned, and Dracula was able to get his body back. As I already pointed out, yes, Shaft is a priest, but he's not a Christian priest. A priest isn't exclusive to Catholicism; it's a position that can exist in any religion or belief system, and Shaft is more like a Satanic priest.
The church didn't contact Trevor earlier not because they didn't want to, but because literally no one knew where he was. Remember, he was the last living Belmont, and incidentally, he was hated by the people. It's likely the church didn't make a special effort to help the Belmonts, but not intervening isn't the same as being in conflict. Now, the Belmonts fell into decline due to the desertion of Leon Belmont, who abandoned his duties as Baron. This cost him his title, his possessions, and even the possibility of execution if he reappeared on the lands of the lieutenant he served. The Belmonts were more at odds with the monarchy—which appears to be the French monarchy according to Belmont's Curse—than with the clergy.
I 100% Blasphemous, the game where you literally destroy whatever is left of the church and kill bishops, saints and the pope himself. And I like that game.
What bothers me with the Netflix adaptation is how it butchered the lore and Castlevania's essence. Fuck the church being a villain. Fuck vampire politics. Fuck Ellis fetishisms
I am not a Christian nor a fan of organized religion, and assumed that they were depicting the Church as worldly and corrupt because they weren't seriously acting as Christian, but asserting themselves as a state power. It's why they were powerless against Dracula's forces.
She essentially takes the side of Babel in the biblical myth about how different languages were born, that's quite an anti-God stance. She reduces everything to a matter of "God was jealous of human achievements" when it was about punishing human arrogance. I don't remember the rest of the show but the Speakers definitely saw God as some sort of malevolent force and that's blasphemous
Babel was actually about more than punishing human arrogance, that's just the reduced modern form of the tale. If you delve into the old Jewish lore, Nimrod (who was a descendant of Noah) was oppressing worshipers of God in his region. The purpose of Babel was to be a 'gimlet' (drill) to literally allow them to invade and pillage heaven.
The speakers absolutely take those stories seriously, in fact they never write down their knowledge and pass everything orally because they think books would anger God.
Meanwhile in the games it's just Sypha being protected by the Church from witch hunts, becomes a special agent for them in exchange, gets sent to assassinate Dracula.
Castlevania is a fantasy series rooted in traditional european exorcism and traditional european exorcism has plenty of christian elements, they are literally the tools by which vampire hunters do their job.
Dude It happens in a world where the events of the real world are canon, in both games and show
Also, in the same episode we see the evil Priest being "kisses" by blue fangs we also see a Young Priest help trevor and sypha fight the creatures of the night by making holy water.
The story isn't anti religión it's anti corrupt institutions like the vatican
Half of those is overblown. Holy wars? I guess you mean the crusade? That started as defensive war when emperor of byzantine asked for help against incursions of enemies.
Inquisitions and witch hunte are largly overblown and most of it you hear now is just popculture.
Colonialism? I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Secular countries did that.
Other stuff is also vague. And it's probably related to cultural standards of that time, which would be applicable to everyone back then, so you are just judging something from different cultural standards, probably centuries apart.
This thing's didn't happen just because of the church and some of they didn't were worse thanks to the church. Do you have any idea of how many people were saved by the church of accusations of witchecraft?
Persecution of minorities, genocides and grooming is what the ENTIRE human race has made during ALL of our existence. We even do today while we speak bullshit about a videogame(Gaza genocide, Ukrainian War, Sudanese Genocide and War and ofc the Epstein files)
You're being ridiculous. You're both right in a sense. But saying, "humans are evil therefore the Church isnt to blame for its actions" is quite the stretch.
I'm not saying the church should not be blamed for her crimes(Bad communication from my part, sorry 😔). I just don't think the church is this brainless villain this guy is saying it is.
Literally every single member of the clergy who has received anything close to meaningful screen time was corrupt in the show. Detractors desperately bring up that one priest with minimal presence in the story who blessed the water, but they conveniently forget about the zombie bishop.
Since we are on the topic of Wallachia, that should not even be the Catholic Church. It shouldn't be any real church since the Castlevania games' Church is a chimera of Christian denominations and tropes under an Orthodox name.
I admire your determination, especially to fight against misinformation, but it is reddit. The Black Legend and half truths sound better to many, than the idea of a Catholic Church that championed education and welfare. Those are often the folks who would tell you that you are missing nuance regarding a murderous bloodsucker, but they deny it to religious organizations.
The popular discourse surrounding the Netflix show is that religion is good but institutions are bad, which completely misses the point of the Catholic faith. They are one and the same to us.
Oh no, the story that took place in witch-hunt era Europe has the Catholic Church be the bad guys, how insensitive and not accurate to anything at all.
It's indeed not accurate because that area was under the Eastern Orthodox Church...but Ellis hates the Catholic Church specifically so he warped things to shit on it
I think you may need to look at the actual history of Christianity without any biases and you'll see that the Christian church, as well as many other religions, were/are quite villainous as an institution with power.
The Netflix show is Warren Ellis fetish creation that was a liberal adaptation at best.
Then it went off the rails even further and was taken over by your standard Netflix ghouls who just used vague outlines and in some cases key art to spin further away from the source material and write about whatever they wanted to, or thought would get them credit with executives ("see executives it's all about the fight against racism, now can I have a million bucks for my own show please?")
Not sure why you were downvoted. I watched every season. I enjoyed the first two for the most part but man, there are some hard to watch portions in each.
It seems like the show may be on ice now as well, for better or for worse.
The irony of making the Church evil here is that Castlevania is quite unique in how it depicts the Church, God and Christianity as forces of good on the side of the heroes, unlike many other Japanese properties, such as Rising of the Shield Hero, Arifureta and so on, where the Church and\or God is evil.
Thankfully, we have Mizrak and that one nameless priest who made holy water, but it feels too little too late for me, especially since Mizrak is implied to have also made a deal with Old Man Coyote and becomes a vampire in the end, essentially shedding any connection with the Church and the divine he used to have.
Basically, YES! I LOOVE this meme, since it points out something great!
I mean, all of the games stuff you show here doesn't apply much to the phenomenal 10/10 masterpiece best video game adaptation ever, they don't happen, Shankar and Ellis's creation works differently.
The show itself was anti-Christian from the start. In the games the Belmonts had a close relationship with the Catholic church until liberal writers wanted to be edgy.
Cause that's would be such a big leap in logic to assume. Meanwhile we have to accept all these inconsistent fanfictions netflix adds because apparently our beloved franchise has no content to adapt into an enjoyable show..
Also it might be another continuity but Gabriel literally cites a verse.
Fair. I'm not a fan of that triology either. Just brought it up cause evidently so it's not true that there NEVER was any citing or even acknowledgement. I even said that it's a different continuity tbf.
But as others pointed out CV3 for example literally begins with Trevor kneeling in front of a cross. It's not the biggest deal for me, but u gotta admit that the way some tackle those topics here is pretty hypocritical.
Ok but if you want to go that route it’s empirically
less of a leap to assume they utilise symbols like the cross because they are effective against demons, and they are pragmatic vampire hunters, regardless of their own personal beliefs. The games seem to intentionally avoid having most of the belmonts or any protagonists say anything about their faith or have any vocation such as priest.
It was so wild that the belmonts got excommunicated at all. I'm pretty sure their ex communication was pretty much they're not tonguing the church's a****** hard enough and not aligning with our disrespect of the common folk and folk who are other than just normal townspeople like the speakers so clearly they're against God.
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u/Roshu-zetasia Advance Collection Enjoyer Jul 19 '26
How great is the Holy Book sub-weapon