Reaction shot: Castlevania S01E03 (Floors: 2, Belmont 0)

[spindizzy]

• Welp. That's a lot of demons in your architecture there.


• I think Belmont's just the sort of nerd who likes solving puzzles and climbing on shit. Him and Nathan Drake would get on like a house on fire.


• I like that the aesthetic is "Haunted catacombs" but everything about it says "Working building with modern conveniences."


• "I'm armed and a lot less happy than you," bless this trash panda of a man.


• Floor: *collapses*
  Belmont, landing perfectly: Ha! Reflexes like a cat!
  Floor: *collapses again*


• Oooooh, the catacombs have electricity. I don't get why or how you'd get electricity running under a medieval city, but sure!


• Those sure are a lot of hyperrealistic broken statues, but I'm sure that's fine!


• I just like that Belmont talks to himself a lot, okay. I know it's to explain things to the viewer, but I like to imagine that he's spent so long on his own that he just got into the habit of narrating everything to himself and now he can't be stopped.


• Aaaaaaaaaaand there go the lights.


• Well, that glowing laser eye is a cool effect but also GROSS.


• "God shits in my dinner once again."


• I love how much motion that cloak gets, it's so dramatic. It's interesting to me that the eye laser can turn inanimate objects to stone as well! Not just things with eyes!


• The roughness in his voice when he says "You're dead! Stop and notice you're dead!" gets me where I live.


• I JUST REALLY LIKE THE FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY THOUGH. I DON'T CARE THAT WHIPS SHOULDN'T DO THAT, HE JUST DOES RIDICULOUS NONSENSE AND USES SYPHA AS A LAUNCHING PAD.


• The way that Sypha starts to droop pleases me, because the weight of her stone body parts visibly pulls her down even though they don't change position.


• Also I like that the one time that Belmont shows anything approaching tenderness to another human being, it's immediately undercut by Sypha throwing up.


• I don't understand his objection to Speakers dressing the same regardless of gender except as a way to highlight to the audience that that's what happened. ... Also because my brain popped Nathan Drake's name up earlier, I DO in fact consider both of them to be nerdy disaster bis, and this explains SO MUCH about my fictional character preferences.


• Sypha just trying to carry out a normal conversation after having been petrified has me going "Oh bless" at her a lot.


• Okay, Cyclopses are the embodiment of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream as their feeding strategy. GOT IT.


• "Did - did you climb on me?"
  "Mm. A bit."


• Castlevania is a show about very competent murder gremlins being called out for their rudeness by tiny blondes and honestly I'm here for it.


• (Alucard is a less tiny blond, but he still counts.)


• "Killing a cyclops is the only way to restore its victims. Wasn't sure I'd manage it." BUT HE TRIED ANYWAY OH MY GOD TREVOR YOU ARE THE WORST AT NIHILISTIC DETACHMENT FROM CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE AND ALSO AT GIVING A DAMN ABOUT YOUR OWN LIFE.


• Oh hey, Sypha knows exactly who the Belmonts are and what they do!


• "I'm out of practice," says man who has spent at least a year drinking himself stupid and can still commit murder on command.


• SYPHA'S FACE WHEN SHE REALISES THAT HER FAMILY THINK SHE'S DEAD D: And the only thing that convinces her to leave is setting her grandfather's mind at ease before she comes back.


• Belmont: *tries not care* *cares a lot*


• I wonder why it took so long for the other victims to start turning back into flesh!


• I wonder how they got out of there, considering that Belmont fell two floors trying to get in. ... I wonder how Sypha got in, actually, because she either didn't go that way or was light enough that she didn't make the floor cave in. Either way, I'm guessing she had to lead them out of there.


• EVERYONE IS SO HAPPY TO SEE EACH OTHER, AHHHHHH.


• "There's someone wriggling with pleasure in his coffin right now" would probably be a kinkmeme prompt if kinkmemes were still a thing.


• Alucard why did you put a cyclops under the city. Why.


• "Metal veins carrying hot liquid? Torches that light by themselves?" Defamiliarisation! I know this word! ... Through tumblr memes, admittedly, but I still know it!


• (Theory: Castlevania is also a story about inheritances. The Speakers and the Belmonts both pass down information through generations, Alucard inherits knowledge and a duty to stop Dracula...)


• Belmont reiterating their deal, that the Speakers HAVE TO LEAVE before sunset is nice, because he's just like "Nope, I cannot deal with existing in the same space as actual non-terrible human beings who are grateful to me, bye."


• "I could pee in a bucket and tell him it's beer." SYPHA BELNADES OH MY GOD.


• Beardy Hench Dude probably spent ALL DAY coming up with that one-liner.


• ... Okay, that's what... Nine, ten, ELEVEN dudes there, that's probably the right amount of dudes to bring to this knife fight.


• "I don't think I'm allowed into churches," says man who has been literally excommunicated. ... Seriously, I don't know if the bishop is allowed to go "You have five minutes of god not looking, get in the church."


• "I realise you're trying to menacingly abduct me," he seriously has not a single fuck to give, I love this ridiculous man.


• And even if he DID think he could take on that many dudes, he's right in front of the Speakers' home, so that would DEFINITELY have repercussions.


• And the Hench Dudes just LEAVE THE LITERAL MURDER HOBO WITH BISHOP WITCHHUNTER. THAT DOESN'T SOUND SAFE..


• "You're not from round here."


• Who's betting that the matter of discipline that he and the Archbishop disagreed on involved murder? Because I feel like it involved murder.


• "I'm here to save Gresit," says the man who caused all of this fucking mess.


• I HATE THIS MAN SO MUCH, OH MY GOD. He's a power-hungry snob who can't recognise his own hubris and I hate him. And that light, casual "I arranged it, in fact," about Lisa's death! AUGH.


• Thing I didn't notice until now is how Bishop Witchhunter keeps a literal distance between them - he is very deliberately above Belmont, and keeps returning to stand at the lectern. Not sure if it's to make it easier for him to look down his nose at people or to visually enforce his authority but ugggggggggggh.


• You know, this is my third or fourth time watching this series and I still have a hard time wrapping my head about Bishop Witchhunter being a True Believer. He's keeping people afraid and turning on anyone who could help them because he believes that's what he needs to do?! That the presence of people who aren't Christians in the city could damn all of them? That killing people will somehow actually save the city?! I don't know what it says about me that I have an easier time understanding his actions as a cynical powergrab than anything based on religion, but fuuuuuuuckin hell.


• (Listen, I am a queer woman who grew up going to CoE/Methodist schools. I know a lot of Americans who grew up in the South. My sister is an MA in theology and lives with a vicar. I know that people do incomprehensible things because they can argue that the bible agrees. I just have a hard time understanding it as a motive.)


• The golds and lighting of that background are beautiful. Especially because this? This is the brightest, lightest, and tonally warmest anything has been in Gresit all series, and it's the villains' base of operations. Of course.


• "My family commited no crime, you people simply decided we were wrong" is probably the battle-cry of most of the christians I know who've had to switch denominations.


• "The people of this city are MINE." YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT IT BEING EASIER TO UNDERSTAND AS A POWERGRAB THOUGH?! Like, for all that he talks about manipulating these people on god's behalf, he IS still taking satisfaction in that power. Uggggggggggggggggggggggh.


• Bold of you to assume that Belmont WANTS to stop being excommunicated.


• LOOK AT HOW HAPPY HE IS THAT EVERY OTHER CITY IN WALLACHIA IS DYING OR DEAD. LOOK AT HOW MUCH JOY HE'S TAKING IN HAVING SET ALL OF THIS DESTRUCTION IN MOTION.


• "To all intents and purposes, I will be the church."


• "Trevor! Join us!"
  "Sure. By the way, you're all going to die."


• "The new bishop is beyond insane. Over the top and into new lands of snake-fuckingly crazy." I just love Belmont's way with words, okay.


• THERE we go, there is him not even being able to pretend that he doesn't care, THERE is where all the emotions are. They're in his desire to save twelve people from a fate no one deserves.


• And here we go, here is the Elder re-opening Belmont's wounds and letting them poison inside drain out.


• His voice when he says "I didn't run away," oh noooooooooo


• "I am calling you defeated, Trevor Belmont. You fought your battle and decided that you lost."


• "If we truly are the sort of people who will kill one another at the behest of a madman's fantasies, then perhaps it is right and proper that things from hell should rise up to wipe us out."


• Belmont trying to menace the Speakers into leaving when they've just gone "No, fuck you, here is your character arc now FUCKING FOLLOW IT" at him is just *throws hands in air*


• Uh-oh, sunset! Everything is fucked!


• The army of demons setting off matched with the angry mob readying itself not to fight the demons that are causing their problems but the human beings who've been trying to help them is very well done and incredibly frustrating. Especially for that fucking prick literally directing the mob like he's setting up lines at a convention. Fuck that guy in particular.


• IS IT A METAPHOR? WHO KNOWS.


• The Speakers appear to live in a part of the city that's in even more disrepair than the rest of it, and somehow THEY'RE the problem? Fuck all of you.


• Belmont standing like a horror-movie ghost in a dimly-lit house while people break the doors down is an Aesthetic.


• And there's the not!priests!


• "Where are the Speakers?"
  "I've put them somewhere safe."
  [Flash-cut: Speakers staring at the dead Cyclops like "Nope."]


• I can't tell if that's undercutting the seriousness of what's happening or just going "Cool, here's the confirmation that you don't need to worry about them, enjoy the violence."


• "You're here to convince the people that nomad black magicians are good for Gresit, and it is the presence of men of God that brought the night hordes upon us?" Oh hey, look, there's a one-sentence summary of the entire plot of series one! Good work unnamed NPC!


• Trevor Belmont is my favourite stinky wreck who can't keep his eyes open.


• "What do you expect to achieve against us?"
  "Absolutely nothing."


• He sounds so HAPPY. Like, this is the hill he's going to die on and he's chosen it. He's chosen this stand.


• "We do this thing for Wallachia and her people. We don't have to know you all. We do it anyway. And it's not the dying that frightens us. It's never having stood up and fought for you." Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Look at him bringing together the lessons of his family and of the Speakers! Look at the symbolism of letting go of his cloak to finally stop hiding himself! Watch the last warmth Trevor Belmont ever had get discarded!


• Those were a LOT of throwing knives! And look, he already rigged that house to collapse!


• Credit to that man for having a throwing axe so well-balanced that Belmont managed to take down a cross ON THE TOP OF THE CHURCH STEEPLE.


• Also bloody hell he's fast.


• HE MUST HAVE SPENT ALL DAY SETTING UP THESE TRAPS. BELMONT HOW LONG WERE YOU PLANNING THIS?! I don't believe for one SECOND that there was just a co-incidentally flammable puddle of oil right there on the path he's running.


• He looks like he's having fun.


• Archers? Who brought archers to this mob?!


• Did I mention I love the fight choreography? Because I do, especially because this is all nonsense that I could believe happening in a game. ... Although I'm back to "Why does the bishop have a mob of murder priests?"


• Eyeball guy is just cursed is what I'm taking from this.


• Belmont you jammy git, what was your plan if that archer DIDN'T shoot his buddy?


• Being able to see the mob from the skies is REALLY COOL visually and TERRIBLE for Belmont.


• ... Oh no. Oh that's the demons starting their attack run.