- 6,195
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Yeah, I think this has been a long time coming. And before anyone gets their hopes up: No, I'm not going to downgrade the verse to Tier 9.
The Tier 4 ratings
So, currently, we give Dracula a 4-A low-end for a couple of reasons, one of which is the following:
Warped his castle and created a dimension containing numerous stars and a massive black hole sucking in said stars.
For reference, here is the "feat" in question. As you can see, it's... pretty damn vague, and although I don't necessarily think the background change itself is just an illusion, or something of the sort, I see no reason for us to concretely say that those little lights are stars, and much less to conclude that the dark sphere sucking them in is a supermassive black hole.
Really, if you weren't directly told to interpret them as being stars before watching the video, I severely doubt you'd make that association on your own, nevermind the fact that the game itself has no other background design that even resembles a starry sky for us to use as a reference point. So, at best, this is a vague, unquantifiable Spatial Manipulation feat.
The other feat is fine, though, since the power of Dracula's Castle did indeed dwarf the magical energy of a bunch of pocket dimensions and was considered a better power source by Brauner to the point he needed nine of them to even start weakening the place.
The Tier 2 ratings
One of the main feats supporting the Low 2-C tier currently in the profiles is listed in the Time Reaper's profile. Namely:
The Time Reaper was erasing the very fabric of time and destroying the Castlevania timeline.
This is only partially correct, for one. Let's take a look at the evidence in question:
As you can see, all of these bits of dialogue very directly state that the Time Reaper was only intending to destroy the present era of time, and not the entire spacetime continuum, and the last comment by Koji Igarashi further confirms that "Castlevania timeline," in this case, only refers to a time period spanning 1000 years (Presumably the ones in which Dracula reigned as the Dark Lord.)
The very plot of the game supports this, too, since it was kickstarted by Galamoth, a being from 10,000 years in the future who has his sights on Dracula's throne, sending the Time Reaper into the far past so he can indirectly destroy Dracula by erasing the time period in which he exists, as Galamoth himself is far too weak compared to the Dark Lord and would be no match for him in a physical confrontation. This whole process would obviously be very unnecessary and counter-intuitive if the Time Reaper could just destroy the entire timeline anyway.
Indeed, the Time Reaper destroying all of space and time at all already runs counter to Galamoth's plans, since it is established both in Judgement and in Symphony of the Night that his ultimate goal is to obtain rulership of the Netherworld which Dracula governs, and of all creation:
castlevania.fandom.com
Thus, the description should be changed accordingly, and whether or not the tier of the feat itself changes, I think, is something that requires a bit more discussion, since I don't think destroying only a part of a timeline is something we have much consensus on.
Granted, Judgement does other feats that could be interpreted as Tier 2, as well. For example, if you defeat Aeon using himself in a mirror-match, he will say this:
Which is pretty straightforward, all things considered, and most certainly doesn't refer to the events of the main plot, since a mirror-match between Aeon and himself doesn't occur at any point in his Story Mode. Furthermore, Judgement itself takes place in a location called the "Time Rift," which Aeon himself describes as an alternate universe:
And the Time Rift itself is a creation of the Time Reaper, either a byproduct of his destruction of the fabric of spacetime or the root cause of it, and it is only able to he mended (Or erased, as Aeon puts it) after he is defeated:
They are certainly worth noting, though I'm still not quite sure how the latter would be reconciled with the Time Reaper explicitly having to travel back into a certain period of time in order to destroy it. If anything, the former would just scale to Aeon and whoever is above him.
The other batch of feats comes from the same duology of games, namely the one composed of Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, and are of the same nature to boot: In Aria of Sorrow, Soma Cruz faces an entity known as Chaos, whom the game identifies as "the root of all chaotic things" and as the embodiment and source of the evil within the hearts of humans, which acts as a perfect counter to the goodness of God and utilizes the figure of the Dark Lord as a conduit for its power in the material realm.
On his way to the entity proper, Soma first goes through the final stretch of the game: The Chaotic Realm, which is an area shaped like a mishmash of the previous dungeons, all surrounded by an outer space-like location with a bunch of galaxies and stars spinning around. Obviously, as the root of all chaotic things, Chaos is closely linked to its realm, and after Soma defeats it, the place vanishes alongside Dracula's Castle, leaving only a white void behind.
In Dawn of Sorrow, meanwhile, the feat in question happens after Soma defeats a demon called Menace, who was born as an amalgamation of all the souls of the Abyss (The netherworld which Dracula rules over) which the main villain, Dmitri Blinov, absorbed in order to try and take Dracula's position as the Dark Lord. After its death, all of the souls are released, and the Abyss collapses entirely. The same thing happens in Julius Mode, where, after being defeated, Dark Lord Soma collapses the Abyss too.
This being relevant because the Abyss, as previously established, consists of 6 separate areas, one of which is filled to the brim with galaxies, and others which should be comparable in size.
If you look at those feats, it doesn't take too much brainpower to realize that they clearly don't involve spacetime collapsing, and likewise there is no evidence of that, either, explicit or even implicit. As such, at face value they would be 3-A, or 3-B if you feel like being conservative, though given how Yoko Belnades and Alucard both refer to the Abyss as "the dark side," with the implication being that the human world is its reverse (Logically fits, too, since it is the realm governed by the entity opposite to God, the Dark Lord), it's probably not too much of a stretch to say it's indeed a full universe:
But there is more to the Abyss itself than those backgrounds, too. For reference, here's a statement from the light novel, ''Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss'':
So, basically, Dracula's Castle has an infinite supply of zombies and similar monsters that serve as the Dark Lord's legions, all of which are sustained by his own magic and exist under his full command due to the Power of Dominance (Explained in more detail on his profile), which assures they all remain a part of his magic, body and soul.
And as Dawn of Sorrow establishes, the Abyss itself is the region in which the souls of all these monsters normally exist, and out of which Dracula summons them into the human realm alongside the Castle itself, owing to its classification as the Demon World. Indeed, it's the source of the Castle's own existence and what fuels its magic to begin with.
So, it logically follows that, to contain infinite souls, the Abyss would itself have to be infinite. These souls themselves seem to play a role in sustaining the place, as well, since as seen above, once they are expelled from Dmitri and rejected by Soma, the Abyss starts crumbling. Furthermore, briefly after he absorbs the Abyss' souls, Dmitri starts to rapidly succumb to them, and Alucard explains that this is because his own spirit is not strong enough to contain so much power. In the end, they tear open his body and fuse into Menace.
Taking all of that into account, sustaining the Abyss and, for the matter, even being a Dark Lord at all is a High 3-A feat, and shouldn't really be considered Low 2-C on its own, for the reasons I outlined up there. Though scaling may affect the latter.
Another, more ambiguous feat that the current profiles seem to consider as valid happens in the aforementioned light novel, ''Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss'', where Count Olrox, a vampire under Dracula's command, takes the opportunity to fill in the power vacuum left by his master's absence and summons his own Demon Castle into the world. However, due to certain circumstances Olrox wasn't able to invoke Dracula's true castle, and instead summoned just his legions in a soulless state, powered only by magic, so their bodies could serve as material for the castle's construction.
If we take this to mean that Olrox constructed a Castle comprised of an infinite number of corpses, then this would be another High 3-A feat, since not only was the place's own existence sustained by Olrox, but he was also able to disperse his magical power throughout it to hide its true form. Once he decides to fight at full power, he reunites all that energy back into himself.
I am a bit skeptical on the second one, but these two feats, at least, can serve as replacements for the Low 2-C high-end if it's not deemed as acceptable. Though Aeon's statement in particular is very direct, so, I doubt it will.
TL;DR
The Tier 4 ratings
So, currently, we give Dracula a 4-A low-end for a couple of reasons, one of which is the following:
Warped his castle and created a dimension containing numerous stars and a massive black hole sucking in said stars.
For reference, here is the "feat" in question. As you can see, it's... pretty damn vague, and although I don't necessarily think the background change itself is just an illusion, or something of the sort, I see no reason for us to concretely say that those little lights are stars, and much less to conclude that the dark sphere sucking them in is a supermassive black hole.
Really, if you weren't directly told to interpret them as being stars before watching the video, I severely doubt you'd make that association on your own, nevermind the fact that the game itself has no other background design that even resembles a starry sky for us to use as a reference point. So, at best, this is a vague, unquantifiable Spatial Manipulation feat.
The other feat is fine, though, since the power of Dracula's Castle did indeed dwarf the magical energy of a bunch of pocket dimensions and was considered a better power source by Brauner to the point he needed nine of them to even start weakening the place.
The Tier 2 ratings
One of the main feats supporting the Low 2-C tier currently in the profiles is listed in the Time Reaper's profile. Namely:
The Time Reaper was erasing the very fabric of time and destroying the Castlevania timeline.
This is only partially correct, for one. Let's take a look at the evidence in question:
As you can see, all of these bits of dialogue very directly state that the Time Reaper was only intending to destroy the present era of time, and not the entire spacetime continuum, and the last comment by Koji Igarashi further confirms that "Castlevania timeline," in this case, only refers to a time period spanning 1000 years (Presumably the ones in which Dracula reigned as the Dark Lord.)
The very plot of the game supports this, too, since it was kickstarted by Galamoth, a being from 10,000 years in the future who has his sights on Dracula's throne, sending the Time Reaper into the far past so he can indirectly destroy Dracula by erasing the time period in which he exists, as Galamoth himself is far too weak compared to the Dark Lord and would be no match for him in a physical confrontation. This whole process would obviously be very unnecessary and counter-intuitive if the Time Reaper could just destroy the entire timeline anyway.
Indeed, the Time Reaper destroying all of space and time at all already runs counter to Galamoth's plans, since it is established both in Judgement and in Symphony of the Night that his ultimate goal is to obtain rulership of the Netherworld which Dracula governs, and of all creation:
Galamoth
Galamoth (ガラモス, Garamosu?), also known as King Garamoth among other name variants, is a boss in the Castlevania series. He is a magical being who has a 10,000 years plan to take over the throne of the Netherworld.[2] Galamoth originally was the main antagonist of the Famicom game, Kid Dracula...
castlevania.fandom.com
Thus, the description should be changed accordingly, and whether or not the tier of the feat itself changes, I think, is something that requires a bit more discussion, since I don't think destroying only a part of a timeline is something we have much consensus on.
Granted, Judgement does other feats that could be interpreted as Tier 2, as well. For example, if you defeat Aeon using himself in a mirror-match, he will say this:
Which is pretty straightforward, all things considered, and most certainly doesn't refer to the events of the main plot, since a mirror-match between Aeon and himself doesn't occur at any point in his Story Mode. Furthermore, Judgement itself takes place in a location called the "Time Rift," which Aeon himself describes as an alternate universe:
And the Time Rift itself is a creation of the Time Reaper, either a byproduct of his destruction of the fabric of spacetime or the root cause of it, and it is only able to he mended (Or erased, as Aeon puts it) after he is defeated:
They are certainly worth noting, though I'm still not quite sure how the latter would be reconciled with the Time Reaper explicitly having to travel back into a certain period of time in order to destroy it. If anything, the former would just scale to Aeon and whoever is above him.
The other batch of feats comes from the same duology of games, namely the one composed of Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, and are of the same nature to boot: In Aria of Sorrow, Soma Cruz faces an entity known as Chaos, whom the game identifies as "the root of all chaotic things" and as the embodiment and source of the evil within the hearts of humans, which acts as a perfect counter to the goodness of God and utilizes the figure of the Dark Lord as a conduit for its power in the material realm.
On his way to the entity proper, Soma first goes through the final stretch of the game: The Chaotic Realm, which is an area shaped like a mishmash of the previous dungeons, all surrounded by an outer space-like location with a bunch of galaxies and stars spinning around. Obviously, as the root of all chaotic things, Chaos is closely linked to its realm, and after Soma defeats it, the place vanishes alongside Dracula's Castle, leaving only a white void behind.
In Dawn of Sorrow, meanwhile, the feat in question happens after Soma defeats a demon called Menace, who was born as an amalgamation of all the souls of the Abyss (The netherworld which Dracula rules over) which the main villain, Dmitri Blinov, absorbed in order to try and take Dracula's position as the Dark Lord. After its death, all of the souls are released, and the Abyss collapses entirely. The same thing happens in Julius Mode, where, after being defeated, Dark Lord Soma collapses the Abyss too.
This being relevant because the Abyss, as previously established, consists of 6 separate areas, one of which is filled to the brim with galaxies, and others which should be comparable in size.
If you look at those feats, it doesn't take too much brainpower to realize that they clearly don't involve spacetime collapsing, and likewise there is no evidence of that, either, explicit or even implicit. As such, at face value they would be 3-A, or 3-B if you feel like being conservative, though given how Yoko Belnades and Alucard both refer to the Abyss as "the dark side," with the implication being that the human world is its reverse (Logically fits, too, since it is the realm governed by the entity opposite to God, the Dark Lord), it's probably not too much of a stretch to say it's indeed a full universe:
But there is more to the Abyss itself than those backgrounds, too. For reference, here's a statement from the light novel, ''Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss'':
So, basically, Dracula's Castle has an infinite supply of zombies and similar monsters that serve as the Dark Lord's legions, all of which are sustained by his own magic and exist under his full command due to the Power of Dominance (Explained in more detail on his profile), which assures they all remain a part of his magic, body and soul.
And as Dawn of Sorrow establishes, the Abyss itself is the region in which the souls of all these monsters normally exist, and out of which Dracula summons them into the human realm alongside the Castle itself, owing to its classification as the Demon World. Indeed, it's the source of the Castle's own existence and what fuels its magic to begin with.
So, it logically follows that, to contain infinite souls, the Abyss would itself have to be infinite. These souls themselves seem to play a role in sustaining the place, as well, since as seen above, once they are expelled from Dmitri and rejected by Soma, the Abyss starts crumbling. Furthermore, briefly after he absorbs the Abyss' souls, Dmitri starts to rapidly succumb to them, and Alucard explains that this is because his own spirit is not strong enough to contain so much power. In the end, they tear open his body and fuse into Menace.
Taking all of that into account, sustaining the Abyss and, for the matter, even being a Dark Lord at all is a High 3-A feat, and shouldn't really be considered Low 2-C on its own, for the reasons I outlined up there. Though scaling may affect the latter.
Another, more ambiguous feat that the current profiles seem to consider as valid happens in the aforementioned light novel, ''Reminiscence of the Divine Abyss'', where Count Olrox, a vampire under Dracula's command, takes the opportunity to fill in the power vacuum left by his master's absence and summons his own Demon Castle into the world. However, due to certain circumstances Olrox wasn't able to invoke Dracula's true castle, and instead summoned just his legions in a soulless state, powered only by magic, so their bodies could serve as material for the castle's construction.
If we take this to mean that Olrox constructed a Castle comprised of an infinite number of corpses, then this would be another High 3-A feat, since not only was the place's own existence sustained by Olrox, but he was also able to disperse his magical power throughout it to hide its true form. Once he decides to fight at full power, he reunites all that energy back into himself.
I am a bit skeptical on the second one, but these two feats, at least, can serve as replacements for the Low 2-C high-end if it's not deemed as acceptable. Though Aeon's statement in particular is very direct, so, I doubt it will.
TL;DR
- Dracula's 4-A justification should be rewritten to remove the Dracula X Chronicles feat.
- The Time Reaper was not going to destroy the entire timeline, just a part of it, and so the profile should be edited to correct that, though whether or not the feat remains Low 2-C is something worth discussing.
- Sustaining the Abyss is not a Low 2-C feat, and shouldn't be treated as such in the profiles. Same goes for the Chaotic Realm.
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