#j. text

Young Dracula uses this - let’s just call it a trope for sake of ease, though I haven’t consumed quite enough vampire/Dracula-inspired media to know if it actually is one or not - a few other times across the show as well, and whilst watching Castlevania I realised that this trope isn’t exclusive to YD and began to wonder why this was in at least two Dracula-inspired texts. Certainly, it makes for a very interesting dynamic, and although the reasons for it (”it” being the fighting) are different in each case, both across YD and in comparison to Castlevania, I thought that it was interesting to see across more than one text. I think what the two have in common is the son being a pacifist and the father being the Ultimate Vampire™ - and of course, with being the heir of the Ultimate Vampire™, the two are fairly evenly matched despite their opposing views. This then creates a wonderful dynamic between the two which can easily be seen in other forms across all stories as the trope of the protagonist sacrificing family/loved ones for the greater good. It’s understandable why this could be a trope (and if it isn’t it should be because I think it’s wonderful) because the dynamics and the character/relationships development as a result of it is brilliant.

Now, the difference between Castlevania and Young Dracula’s use of this trope is that Castlevania seems to do it in more of the aforementioned “sacrificing family for the greater good” type way. I think that is definitely where Dracula vs Alucard comes from and why we have that opposition rather than just Sypha/Trevor against Dracula. I believe that Alucard does love his father, the only reason that he is fighting him is because he knows that it’s the only way to stop him from committing the genocide of the human race. Alucard chooses to go up against Dracula, unlike Vlad, who, in all of his battles against the Count in which he is still that pacifist son (although Alucard isn’t really a pacifist but it’s close enough for this speculation), is forced into them. Alucard fighting Dracula seems to fulfil a trope outside of the idea of just Dracula vs his son; it’s incredibly cliché, not that it’s a bad thing, to have the only person who is able to defeat the Big Bad be the one person alive who loves them^. I don’t think that it takes anything away from the possibility of having this Dracula battling his son be a trope though, in fact I think maybe it’s just another element to it. This perhaps then is just a Dracula-specific interpretation of that previously mentioned trope? It could also be said that Alucard didn’t really have a choice in battling his father, because, what, he was just going to let him kill the entire human populace because a few of them killed his mother?? To be fair, yeah. He could’ve. ANYWAY, whether he had the choice or not, Vlad is always forced into his battles. The only time he isn’t is in Series 3 when he’s Bad Vlad and uses his powers against the Count purely for malicious, sadistic fun - hot. Both the other times however, in the dream-world in Series 2 and when the Vampire High Council try to make him and the Count fight till the death in Series 5, Vlad does not want to and refuses both times to fight his father. Of course, their characters are entirely different to Alucard and Dracula, but it is very revealing of those characters when they’re put in these situations, and I think this is why it’s seen across these stories. Vlad’s innocent, pacifistic nature is truly tested in the dream-world, and although we see this change slightly throughout the series as he gets tougher on his family when taking up his responsibilities as Chosen One, when him and the Count are forced up against each other again in the final series he still refuses to fight, truly showing how the core values of his character are unchanged.