Reaction shot: Castlevania S01E02 (or, Trevor Belmont is a disaster and I love him.)

[spindizzy]

Someone paid Richard Armitage good money to say the words "Would you please leave my testicles alone?" That was a thing that happened. You're welcome for this knowledge.

• His flush is adorable, bless.


• YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT THE FACES?


• Shovel Man is a twat. The fact that he's a twat with a opinions about class politics doesn't mean that he's not a twat.


• "Sorry, can I get my ale? Only I think I'm sobering up."


• There's a pretty good level of physical comedy in Trevor being a disaster of a drunk, because I love his face when he's rummaging inside his MASSIVE POOFY CLOAK for his money!


• (I remember artofchira once saying that Belmont's cloak was the only hug he'd ever had and you know what? I'd believe it.)


• "What's that on your chest?"
  "My shirt."


• "That's a family crest. I know it." / "I don't." has the same energy as telling someone that you don't have a phone while you're texting someone.


• He sounds so plaintive when he asks for his last drink, bless this fucking disaster of a human and his desire to just sleep peacefully under a tree.


• I'm interested in how Shovel Man pronounces Belmont, because it's a lot closer to what I'd expect a French pronunciation to be, rather than, y'know, dropping ts as a class marker like I do? I dunno. I am not an expert on Castlevania and its setting.


• Bless Trevor and his attempts to de-escalate this.


• The fact that he calls Shovel Man "son" when Shovel Man is blatantly older than him (and sounds remarkably less drunk when he's snarling that the Belmont's fought monsters) is amusing me.


• I love how tattered the edges of his cloak are.


• And look, here's the explanation of why the Belmont family haven't stepped in to stop this madness! I have to wonder if Bishop Witchhunter is the one behind the Belmonts' being excommunicated – if he's deliberately trying to keep the population afraid, ignorant, and at the whims of whatever the church has deemed heretical that week, then having people going around educating people, explaining how to kill monsters, and going "Listen, arguing with the church is not the same as trafficking in demons," would be fucking terrible for them! Especially if they're seizing resources or tithes from it! ... What I'm saying is that structural oppression based on keeping people ignorant kills a LOT of people in this show.


• "Whose fault is that?"
  "Well, it's not mine!"


• Maybe Shovel Man is the Warren Ellis stand-in. But he's too anti-science for that. Hmmm.


• "You can sleep right here."
  "You haven't got your shovel."
  TREVOR BELMONT WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THAT SELF-PRESERVATION THAT YOU HAD FIVE SECONDS AGO.


• "What's your name?"
  "Jesus of Nazareth."


• Trevor very gently tipping Shovel Man over by his foot amuses me.


• NO BARMAN, I THOUGHT YOU WEREN'T A DICK


• "Oi! Fucking face down here!"


• Brother-Cousin is Very Large. Huh.


• "Listen, I used to fight fucking vampires," says very drunk man who is about to fall on his arse.


• I'VE FOUND OUT WHY I KEEP THINKING RICHARD ARMITAGE'S NAME STARTS WITH A G! It'st because he played Guy of Gisbourne in the Robin Hood tv show from my teenage years and apparently that's what he is forever going to be stored as in my brain!


• "I'm Trevor fucking Belmont, and I've never lost a fight to man nor fucking beast. ... Oh shit."


• TREVOR GETS ALL OF THE GOOD LINES, OKAY.


• "The text town's forty bloody miles away," this is good for me to know, because that means that when they're travelling to stuff NEXT season they have a fair ways to go.


• That demon has a baby, oh that's not good.


• LADY WHAT SLEEPING PILLS WERE YOU TAKING THAT YOU SLEPT THROUGH YOUR HUSBAND BEING MURDERED NEXT TO YOU.


• Decorative severed heads! Fun for all the family! DEFINITELY not a public sanitation hazard!


• "Pretty sure they wouldn't [barricade the entire town] just to deny me breakfast," he says, like it wouldn't be the first time someone had.


• I'm gonna be honest: the fact that Gresit actually has a drain to take their filth outside the city wall is more than I expected. Like, that drain is probably full of blood as well on a high-demon night, but sure, basic attempts at sanitation.


• Belmont dragging his carcass through the drainage pipe is a new low for him and I love him. He's such a disaster. But it's okay! Everyone else in this town is pretending that the demons aren't happening too, so it's fine!


• I love his face when he sneaks past the guard.


• Oh this city is falling to rack and ruin. Like, blood on the rooves and walls collapsing levels of falling. HOW DOES ANYONE WITH BASIC MORALITY JUSTIFY FORCING PEOPLE TO LIVE OUTSIDE A) IN WINTER, B) IN WINTER IN EASTERN EUROPE, AND C) WHILE DEMONS ARE STALKING THE NIGHT AND EATING PEOPLE EVEN WHEN THEY'RE IN HOUSES?!?!?!?!


• Like, I know the point is that The Church Is Corrupt And Immoral but also... No one opens their doors? No one goes "... Fuck it, everyone in that house died last week, I'll take my chances"? WHY ARE ALL OF THESE PEOPLE HORRIBLE. WHY DO RELIGIOUS PEOPLE IN MEDIA SO RARELY GO "YEAH THE CHURCH SAYS THIS BUT I HAVE BASIC DECENCY AND I'M GONNA DO THAT" LIKE THEY DO IN REAL LIFE. COME ON.


• ... I am an old and grouchy agnostic and the older I get the more I want people to be bound together by positive things and it's hard to find, okay. Especially because I've just started looking at all fictional organisations and going "What benefit are people actually GETTING from you?"


• ... Mates I take back EVERYTHING I said about your sanitation, you're literally piling up a mass grave inside the walls of your city. What the fuck.


• Belmont: *gives not a single fuck*


• I love that his immediate reaction is "Climb on something, find out what's going on!"


• ... Are those intestines strung up like bunting. Ew.


• I like that she notices that he's new to the city, and not that he has somehow gotten through their barricade.


• Oh, there we go, that "troubles" was much more what I expected of his accent.


• "Is there a defence effort?" he asks, because I'm pretty sure he can't help himself.


• I can't... Okay, no, I CAN believe that the people of Gresit have accepted that if they murder all of the Speakers in the city things will get better, because bigots gonna bigot, but surely they SHOULD have a defence effort anyway????


• Trevor looks SUPREMELY done with everything, bless him. Like the montage of him questioning people is entirely him just listening to people while making the ":|" face.


• And he's just going around with his goat hanging out his mouth, I feel very seen.


• What I'm taking from the legend of the sleeping soldier is that Alucard is King Arthur and you cannot change my mind.


• "The demons come in the night, but the bishop's men come in the day, if you know what I mean." I really want to know how he got so entrenched in less than a year, okay. How many people did he kill?! How did he even FIND a band of cut-throats to work for him and wittle down the population of this city until they're ready to commit murder for him?!


• Fuck ALL of the bigots in this city, oh my god. There are SO MANY and even if the city survives and the people are saved, they're still going to be indoctrinated with all of this fucking shite.


• HE HAS A CULT. MURDER BISHOP HAS A FUCKING CULT.


• Oh you're both very brave, going after an unarmed old man. GET FUCKED.


• (I've been assuming that the Speakers are a magic parallel for Roma/Travellers, and honestly this is probably toned down bigotry from what real people experienced but it's still gross.)


• Why did you even have a sword down the front of your coat. That can't have been comfortable.


• Belmont trying to convince himself to just walk away because he doesn't care what happens to anyone. D:


• Ugh, I've had conversations like this with people who refuse to be de-escalated and I'm so angry for Old Man Speaker.


• "Will killing an old man make you less scared of the dark?" FUCKING SAVAGERY.


• That sigh as Belmont realises no, just this once, he can't let a guy get murdered.


• *CLOAK BILLOWS DRAMATICALLY*


• "How's your finger?" "WHAT FUCKING FINGER?!"


• That light, sing-song "This'll get nasty~!" brings me such joy. And his exagerated what's a priest doing with a thief's knife thing is nice.


• "I'm out of practice, but I'm stone-cold sober. Someone will get hurt."


• THAT BORED LITTLE FLIP TO PUT THE GUY ON THE FLOOR


• Oh grim, that's his EYE.


• See, Belmont CAN do manners, look at him! Offering politely to walk Old Man Speaker to his home!


• Listen, I don't blame the younger guy for being like "Oh god violence will make things worse for us." Dude knows what's up.


• The Speakers throwing down because someone suggested writing down their oral histories seems about right. Although, y'know, I spent too long doing ancient history, I am VERY interested in recording oral storytelling.


• "The church burned Dracula's wife at the stake as a witch."
  "... Shit."
  "That is indeed one way of putting it."


• Gresit has lost every doctor, everyone who can help. Fucking hell Gresit.


• ALUCARD IS KING ARTHER WHY IS THIS.


• I like the idea that they hear stories from the future, that's cool.


• I enjoy that they deliberately avoid all of the pronouns when talking about the missing Speaker. I wish that more media did it when they were trying to cover that they're about to introduce a female character, but sure, fine, I'll take what I can get.


• I was right! Belmont is literally getting ready to watch the world burn because the church decided that having people who could fight vampires around was bad!


• The thing is, both Dracula and Belmont are making the same point – that the worst of what's happening in Wallachia can only happen if ordinary people let it. And I honestly don't disagree with them on that point, because they're right, but both of them are using it as an excuse to go "So let all of the fuckers burn."


• Arn being the voice of reason on the whole "Look, here's the other reason we're staying here," is kinda nice, because he doesn't strike me as a person who LIKES anyone, but speaks up for Sypha and the Elder.


• Belmont has officially written off all of the townsfolk, but not the Speakers. Them he wants to protect.


• ... Is Gresit just EXTRA bigoted then? Or is he actually just going "Nah, I've had people trying to kill me for who I am too, let's do this."


• He is straight up just nicking food out of people's hands. Belmont is a seagull, I do not accept criticism.


• "It's not dying that frightens us. It's living without having done our best."
  "I don't care."
  I REALLY LIKE THE ELDER OKAY, AND BELMONT IS A DEPRESSED TRASHPANDA WHO DOESN'T CARE WHETHER HE LIVES OR DIES.


• Belmont is just that "I don't care, I say, caring deeply" text post and I am a sucker for it, oh no.

Comments

[thebaconfat]

Belmont is just that "I don't care, I say, caring deeply" text post

YES

The thing is, both Dracula and Belmont are making the same point – that the worst of what's happening in Wallachia can only happen if ordinary people let it. And I honestly don't disagree with them on that point, because they're right, but both of them are using it as an excuse to go "So let all of the fuckers burn."

This is such a good point!