Castlevania and Anachronism

[opensummer]

Got a comment of history's longest suicide note pointing out that coffee drinking is anachronistic and I figured I'd write some meta on it. 

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SO I did actually consider throwing in a line about a speaker caravan having carried it back from the east and Sypha getting into it then but decided not to for two reasons. One is the handwavey something like 50% of castlevania is anachronistic, do not get me started on Trevor’s short sword it makes me want to tear my hair out, and therefore other anachronisms are more or less acceptable. 

Two, though, is the one I actually thought about, so hold on to your socks. So my theory of the castlevania world is that it doesn’t track with our historical development for three reasons.

1. Vlad Tepes the historical figure was born between 1428-1431 and died between 1476-1477. The action in the series kicks off with Lise’s appearance at the castle in 1455 and Dracula is explicitly stated as having been hundreds (if not thousands) of years old when he meets her, which means who knows what else they’ve messed with. 
2. Magic! They have magic that allows people to farsee, to teleport, and as sypha demonstrated the ability to use magic to clear land. Extrapolating from that I suspect they have lots of mundane uses for magic (building roads and house, creating timber, heating water, etc.) Because of those two factors I suspect that Castlevania’s world in 1475 was much smaller than ours was at the same time period. 
3. They clearly have some concept of globalism. Dracula’s generals are supposed to represent, as far as I can tell the Viking/Celts- Godbrand. India/Pakistan region- the female general in the headdress and sari? I think it’s a sari and the male general in turban. Hector is greek and Isaac is african. I personally like the idea of Moroccan!Isaac but I’m open to arguments there, and wiki tells me the disappearing female vampire’s name was Cho, which is a Korean surname. So I fall on the side of the argument that they haven extensive land networks. (And the reason that there are no New World Vampires is that they can’t cross the ocean to get there.) 

So I decided that Sypha as a nomad would have encountered coffee either through her own travels or be trading with another speaker caravan. Alucard, I decided was introduced to it by his mother, who got addicted when she first starting living with Dracula and he refused to tailor his hours to a human. So Lise discovered coffee as a way to make it through all the all-nighters she had to pull- Dracula’s Magical Kitchen has Everything, and never quite kicked the habit after. (Her pregnancy incidentally was the Actual Worst because she went eight months cold turkey. Her first request after naming Adrien was for a cup.)

My headcanon for Trevor is that after the Belmont Estate went up in flames, he did the whole soldier of fortune thing and never had the money for coffee and the few times he did, he spent it on booze instead. So Sypha and Alucard are both a little addicted and expect a cup in the mornings and Trevor takes good care of his husband and wife team by providing it to them. 

Comments

[squelettique]

This is INCREDIBLY random but my world-building muse strikes at random times and upon reading "(And the reason that there are no New World Vampires is that they can’t cross the ocean to get there.)" I was like, are the vampires there separate incidences/species, or did ancient vampires (if there were ancient vampires) cross the land-bridge from russia to north america? Not exactly relevant at all your for fic (or even possibly factually correct re the land-bridge), but still interesting to think about (imo lol)!

[bluewinged_songbird]

Except Cho is Japanese (cut bangs and that particular style of lipstick) so that's a bit of a wrench in the "can't cross ocean" bit. Maybe the Atlantic is considered too much ocean?? But distance mirrors also exist, so either Dracula didn't want to expend resources there or the American vampires told him to f*** off.

I can't believe you gave more thought to the Anachronism Stew that is Castlevania than the show's writers but I'm enjoying every minute of it. 10/10 would read more.

[lanzelotti]

I won't say much because I migrated from series canon to game canon, but great meta anyway!

But about point 1, in game canon Vlad Tepes wasn't always Vlad Tepes. At the time of Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse (the game Netflix adapted), he's indeed around 400 years old. The thing about the mirrors in the Belmont Hold and the Castle, plus the leon Belmont portrait is more significant than you think!

For 2, magic is strongly implied in the games to come from blood and is very female-biased. Magic, not alchemy, which's more gender neutral. Magicians are also rare because of the witch trials. It's also implied to advance with time the way science does - a 18th century Belnades descendant has much more uses for magic than Sypha, and a 20th century descendant has even more uses for magic than the 18th century witch (and magic users are called witches in game lore, even if they act more like sorcerers or wizards).

As for 3, nothing to add - that's strictly Netflixvania territory, the game setting only starts getting global on the later installments of the chronology - starting from Bloodlines (1917) to Dawn of Sorrow (2036), and only for Europe, USA and Japan. Point for Netflix to make the cast more diverse.

For anachronisms in general - CV is actually a very campy franchise who does not take things very seriously, despite the gritty series. The fandom is all over the french fries and canned tomato soup in Curse of Darkness, for example. SKELETONS IN MOTORCYCLES IN THE 19TH CENTURY is sorta a fandom meme for a reason!

tl;dr PLEASE JOIN THE GAME LORE SIDE, IT'S FUN ;_;