#Castlevania theory

[ouraboras]

Nocturne Season 2 Theory

Ever since the trailer was posted it has consumed my thoughts. I keep coming back to why Alucard so pissed off.

In the original series some genuinely awful things happened to him. And yet the whites of his eyes didn't turn red. It happened to Dracula 3 times: When he found out Lisa was taken, when Carmilla questioned her remaining a human, and fighting Alucard.

So, by the show's logic, Adrian is going to experience something that gives that level of anger. And again, some awful stuff has happened to him. So, what will it be? I have several theories:

It isn't that big of a deal. This is the most disappointing story wise which is why I'm leading with it. It (relative to everything he has been through) won't be that big of a deal. I am hopeful that this theory is not true.

Someone is killed. Highly possible.

Dracula is revived. "But he was revived at the end of season 4." Yes, however, Lisa is human. This man is the most wife guy to ever wife guy. He was already down to kill himself the first time she died (after his revenge). They could have lived out her remaining years in England before killing himself. The creators could have chosen for them to go to Whitby because of its ties to the novel Dracula. However, the location also has ties to Castlevania canon. In Castlevania Bloodlines, Elizabeth Bartley travels to Whitby, England to revive Dracula. I have found another thing that may indicate that elements of bloodlines are going to be used:

I don't think this is Drolta, the wings are wrong and so are the horns. This looks vaguely moth-like to me. There is a boss that is fought in Bloodlines in the palace of Versailles level called Princess of Moths.

Additionally, in the games Elizabeth Bartley turns into Medusa. And the new form for Erzsebet Báthory looks more snake-like.

But why would she do it? She wants to be a queen/god so reviving Dracula would probably backfire on her. I think the reason may lie with the overarching antagonist of the games, Chaos. For those who do not know Chaos is a god of evil and the source of Dracula's powers. And, in Aria of Sorrow, looks like this:

Now, where did I see something familiar to those statue figures?

She could be tricked, possessed by him, or even served him from the start.

My theory is that Dracula will be revived and slain. This may be the creators' way of being able to continue the story with Dracula as an antagonist (i.e., do SotN) or do another timeskip and give Soma Cruz a season. This will anger Alucard as he realizes that people are going to attempt to bring back his father again and again and that the rest of his immortal life will be spent stopping it.

But that's just my theory. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts.

[doodleferp]

What if Drolta isn’t actually dead and she just takes on a much more game-accurate form in the next season

[123moiaussi]

SPOILERS FOR CASTLEVANIA NOCTURNE AHEAD!!!

So, I finished watching Castlevania Nocturne and oml it’s so GOOD.

Anyway, I was discussing with my partner what are the loose ends/ potential storylines for the next season.

Edouard

It’s left about open ended to where Edouard currently is. The ending of the season suggests one of two things.

1. Edouard has taken the forgemaster machine to Hell. This means that he can go to Hell but also manage to break out the abbey if the gang decides to open a portal to hell. They have the book and they have Annette.

2. Edouard is going to stay in the Abbey to get the night creatures to gain a conscious of who they were before they were turned. We know that Edouard knows who he is plus Jacques and one other night creature. I believe that Edouard could potentially repeat the actions of his previous life by creating solidarity between all the night creatures and potentially overthrow the Abbot. What this will also result in is a break in the creator- night creature loyalty bond and thus Erzsebet and the Abbot cannot control the night creatures, thus weakening their power. Also a nice little link between OG Castlevania and Nocturne is Edouard and the other night creatures gaining consciousness like the Philosopher night creature in season 3/4.

The Book

This is a bit of a crack theory but I do think the book connects to the OG series, so buckle up!

In the final episode of the OG Castlevania, Lenore and Hector have a very poignant and contextually important conversation about the direction of Hector’s life and his interest in not only forgemastering but also in vampire ethics and the sciences. Lenore suggests to Hector that he should explore the world and write a book which Hector agrees with.

Now, Drolta says in Nocturne that for night creatures to be made they need a human touch. The machine is implied to not have been built by the Abbot but to come from Hell itself. The Book also is old and includes instructions on how to open Hell as well as conduct forgemastering skills and seems to include lore around vampires and magic. It is implied that the Abbot himself doesn’t use direct tools to create the night creatures like Isaac and Hector. Therefore, the Abbot’s tool is the machine but he didn’t create it. Thus, the person that made the machine must’ve been a human that could forgemaster.

I doubt that Hector is undead/vampire but according to OG Castlevania and what happens in Season 4 there are two people that know how to open portals/get to hell: Saint Germain and Hector. Saint Germain knew because he was a time traveler and had a stone that allowed him to open portals/mirrors to hell and other dimensions. Hector probably knew how to get to hell due to his studies or his research with Dracula.

In conclusion, I think that Hector not only made the forgemaster machine, he also wrote the book that the Abbot now possesses. It’s the human touch that is required to make the night creatures. The Abbot potentially found this book in a church collection like Saint Germain did in the Season 3 or gained access to the book by making a deal with Dracula when he came back into the world with Lisa. Additionally, we know that the Belmont library could have also contained a book on dark magic as it implied in Nocturne that the Belmont family resided in France until about the mid 18th century.

These are some messy ideas but these are just a couple things off my head🫶

[bstag]

Ok but what if the Belmonts disappeared until Julius because they had to go in hiding to avoid being totally wiped out during the French Revolution?

[dontcallmetreffy]

The Nocturne discord I’m in pointed out how tall Alucard appears now so I rounded up screenshots of different vampires next to humans to show just how freakishly tall they are in comparison

[sabaldax]

olrox theory

i think there's a deeper meaning to alucard telling olrox "he's a good man, keep him safe" after mizrak gets wounded. i think it might actually be alucard giving olrox permission. more under the cut

we know olrox's past lover was a mohican man with a strong connection to his people and his country. he was an idealist and a revolutionary. the way olrox describes him in s1, he sounds like a hero. i don't think julia belmont would have a reason to kill the man olrox is describing in that scene.

but olrox isn't talking about what happened after he turned his lover into a vampire.

imagine this: olrox's lover - a goodhearted, strong man with good morals and dreams of peace and freedom - is mortally wounded in a revolutionary battle. olrox can't bear to lose him, so he turns him. olrox doesn't ask - there's no opportunity to - if he doesn't act now, it will be too late. his lover comes back to him as a vampire. at first, olrox is overjoyed. he'll never be alone again. his love story never needs to end. he can love without question or shame and be loved in return, forever.

only, his lover comes back wrong.

if we think of "becoming a vampire" a bit like "rolling the cosmic dice on whether or not your soul will stay intact"? olrox's lover just doesn't pass the check. he's still very much in love with olrox when he comes back - if anything, he's more in love than ever - because olrox just gave him everything he needs to turn the tide.

he goes off the deep end. olrox stands aside and watches in quiet resignation as his lover starts killing indiscriminately, even the revolutionaries he'd previously fought alongside. he becomes the monster in the night, the thing everybody is afraid of. and with good reason: he's killing men, women and children, annihilating the invaders. restoring his people and country to how they were before, how they were always supposed to be, unmarred by colonists.

olrox watches on, unwilling to intervene. but quietly, he's heartbroken that this is what he turned his lover into - that the honourable, peaceful man he fell in love with lost himself somewhere between his deathbed and his second life.

that's why julia belmont comes for him. it's why she targets olrox's lover, but not olrox himself. because olrox, the aztec vampire, is low on the radar compared to the current and active threat decimating entire populations in new england. and olrox still comes for her in due course - still takes her life to avenge the only man he's ever loved. but, deep down? olrox understands why she did it.

so fast forward to now. in s1, when mizrak says "because he was a vampire, and you did that to him. did you even ask permission?", olrox gets angry. that's not something we see him do anywhere else. he's always calm, always calculated, until mizrak hits that sore spot right on the head. did you even ask permission? no, olrox didn't. he didn't have time to. he was going to lose him. he couldn't lose him. you did that to him. olrox did. olrox did that to him. because he put his needs first. because he couldn't lose him. because he was a vampire. but his lover wasn't just any vampire, in the end. he was a nightmare unleashed. he became everything he used to hate in the world, when he was alive - and that was because of olrox.

maybe that's why olrox answers mizrak with a lie:

"and is that what you have planned for me?"

"of course not, mizrak. i'm not in love with you."

olrox lies, because he can't bear to face the truth: that he's in love again, and he would do it all again. every bit of it. that if mizrak were dying - a good man, an honourable man with good values and morals, a good man who could so easily become an unstoppable bloodthirsty killer - if mizrak were dying, olrox would still gamble his soul rather than let him go. olrox is willing to roll those dice.

((it's different this time, though. genuinely different. old man coyote presumably wasn't waiting in the wings to take olrox's past lover's soul, the way he is for mizrak. maybe olrox would have let mizrak pass on otherwise. i like to think so, honestly. i think he'd have honoured his previous lover by not repeating the cycle.))

and we know alucard and olrox know each other. they have at least some amount of history. and since olrox told mizrak about his previous lover, it seems fair enough to say olrox is willing to talk about it provided the other party is a very handsome man. it stands to reason that he's told alucard.

so let's say alucard knows. alucard knows that olrox's last lover was dying, and olrox saved him, and his last lover came back wrong. more to the point: alucard knows what olrox is thinking.

i don't know what to do. i can't bear to lose him but i can't bear to see him come back wrong.

so alucard says what he needs to hear:

he's a good man. keep him safe.

i'm not sure what that means yet. maybe alucard's saying, "he's a good man, a genuinely good man. this time it will be different. so don't let him go to old man coyote. keep him safe from that hell." or maybe alucard is saying, "he's a good man, too. just like the last one. so don't risk losing him to the darkness. don't roll those dice."

or maybe i'm just deeply, profoundly mentally ill, and season 3 will roll around and they'll reveal an olrox backstory that's completely different to any of that.

... but i know what headcanon i'll be building into at least one of my mizrox fics.

what do you think?

[pyromaniacpumpkin]

So I got a theory as to why Alucard went from this in the original show:

To this in Nocturne:

We’re shown in the first show that Alucard ages more or less like a human except much faster but even as an adult he’s still looks more like Lisa than Vlad. Well my theory is that eventually his human aging got to a point where he “died” and took on more of a vampiric appearance. Hence why his hair is white like an old man and why his skin is ghostly white like his dad’s.

Further proof:

Like look at Dracula, that man pale as fuck

[alpaca-clouds]

If I had a penny for every time a Belmont got startled by a fox...

So, @aquilaofarkham pointed this out on BlueSky, and is totally right about it (they made the screenshots to, thanks for allowing me to use them!). Why I clocked this scene in Nocturne as well - I actually did not draw the comparison to the Trevor season 3 scene. But yes, that is indeed...

If I got a penny for every time a Belmont got startled by a fox, I would have two pennies, which is not a lot, but it is weird it happened twice.

And you know what that means, right?

THEORY TIME!!!

As some people might know: Since season 1 of Nocturne was out, I am very very certain of one thing. And that thing is, that the Belmont bloodline also goes back to a god.

In S1 of Nocturne when Annette talks about her own divine bloodline, she says a lot of people do have a divine ancestor, but the knowledge got lost. And to me this instantly read as: "Actually, by the way, the Belmonts totally have a divine ancestor as well!"

And I have been riddling since then, who it could be.

So, what if the fox is a representation of that ancestor?

Yes. This does mean I get to talk mythology again.

So, foxes. In early European folklore the fox is basically equivalent to coyote in North American folklore. Especially in Germany and France Reynard or Reinecken shows up a lot as a trickster spirit in the form of a fox. While there are some theories on Reynard somewhat going back to an actual deity, we kinda don't know about that for sure, because we have absolutely no textual evidence for it, and it mostly goes back to the fact that throughout the area in early medieval times the depiction of Reynard as a trickster is very very consistent - and also lines up with more eastern depictions of fox adjacant deities. Since we know that those are connected through Indo-European culture group it is not so weird to assume that there might have been a fox trickster deity, though if there was, we do not know their name.

But the good news is: The Belmonts are French in origin, and we do know from Trevor that they had contact to indigenous European people (aka the Celts). So, the highest likelihood for a divine ancestor is definitely a Celtic god or goddess.

Now, if we talk about Celtic deities we obviously run into the problem: Outside the Gaelic culture we know Jack Shit. Because fuck the fucking Romans and fuck the Christians even more, who very thoroughly erased most stuff about those religions. My anthropology heart does not spend three hours a day crying about this fact at all!!!!

Of course, we know the Celtic cultures were related, so there is a high likelihood that at least some of the deities from the Gaelic culture will also show up in the Gaulic culture, but we do not know for certain.

Which on the bright side also means, that my guess is about as good as whatever the writers might come up with. Hooray!

So, my first guess is Adsagsona. A goddess about whom we know exactly nothing. We know she was a goddess of magic, who was invoked in spells. And we have the suspicion she was maybe linked to foxes. Maybe. Because the thing is, we do have one written evidence of her being invoked, and some artifacts from the same area she was invoked in that might be related to her and the practice of magic. Which is not a lot. Cool bit about that, of course: It would totally give a writer freedom to make up whatever about this.

Next guess would be Arduinna. She was a forest goddess who got merged with Diana when the Romans colonized what is France today. She definitely got depicted a lot with forest animals, and definitely also was connected to the hunt (which works well with the Belmonts), though the preferred animal for her to be paired with was either the deer or the boar. Which, I would guess, makes sense, because people hunted those more for food than they would hunt foxes.

A bit more vague would be the god Cunomaglus. Because he is British, not Gallic, though definitely he is a hunting god, and while his main animal was the dog, he definitely got also depicted with foxes. No doubt about that bit. xD

Next up would be a probably related god to Cunomaglus: Nodens. Again, British. Again, hunting. Again, the main animal are gods. I would not know about him being depicted with foxes, but given he has a lot of overlap with Cunomaglus I would also not be surprised. Bonus points, because I know there is fandom-overlap between GDT's Hellboy movies and Castlevania: Nuada is based on the Irish equivalent to Nodens, and draws a lot of influence from the Brittanic god.

If we go a bit more wild, we could also make a guess for Ceres, though that one would be a bit weird. Ceres is of course a Roman Goddess, but Romans were also in France forever, so it is not impossible. Ceres is heavily associated with foxes, though mainly in the sense that foxes are sacrificed for her. But there is a fox association.

There is also with the Roman gods a very loose association with both Dionysus and Diana. But Diana usually gets depicted with dogs and stags, and for Dionysus there is exactly one myth linking him to foxes. So... Eh.

Lastly... I will just leave here that Diana's Slavic equivalent, Devana, actually gets depicted as a fox more than once. But Slavic culture is kinda on the other end of Europe. So it is possible, but also... Eh. It is a far bit away. But then again, the Belmonts lived in today's Romania for a long while, so it is not impossible, I guess.

And that's it. For today at least.

But I wanted to get this off my chest.

[loveforaninstant]

one of my favorite things about soldier and prince aka dad alucard au that hasnt made it into the fic (yet) is the fact richter Does Not Realize that other humans find him unsettling. fully doesnt get it. but he was raised by a dhampir in a pretty isolated little town and people can absolutely tell. not bc hes impolite or anything but sometimes there's just. a look in his eyes. a gesture. his grin is a little too wide and sharp. he hisses in response to smth once and maria and annette and tera are all like ????? how did you make that sound and hes just like why is everyone staring at me :)

[castlingvanias]

those "game hector is a gigachad alpha male" memes unironically hurt people's perception of curse of darkness as a story more than how he is treated in the show

like yall know hector in the games is also an abuse victim right?

you know the real reason why the way hector's treated in the show is so insulting isn't because "hector is less masculine alpha" but because it shat on the game's original themes of gaining your own agency and independence after years of abuse by having hector fell in love with his abuser and never truly realizing he deserved better by himself right?

it genuinely piss me off that people ignore that cod is also an abuse narrative and the show sanding Dracula's edges made ppl forget how genuinely awful he is

[ladyandherbooks]

Here's my theory about what I think will happen with Maria if we get a season 3.

So one of the biggest differences between the original show and Nocturne is that Nocturne is a coming of age tale for Maria, Richter and Annette. A coming of age tale where we see them take their first true steps into adulthood as they unlock and embrace their magic, gain confidence and start becoming the protectors and legends they'll one day be famous for.

Season 1 was Richter's season and season 2 was Annette's. It was also the season where we see Richter and Annette become a couple and Richter takes the big step to go with Annette, another big step into adulthood where he leaves his home and family and starts to make a life for himself.

But because Maria is only 16 she can't take all these steps yet. She's staying in Paris but she has Juste, her adoptive father at her side supporting her. She isn't quite there yet but she will be if we get a timeskip.

Since Symphony of the Night takes place in 1797 I think that this will be when season 3 takes place. Maria will be 21/22 (seasons 1 and 2 take place in January 1792) and will be old enough to have this final part of her coming of age story to kick off.

I think that after 5 years as a revolutionary is going to take some sort of emotional toll on her. And as for historical context - 1797 is the year when the royalists take power with a coup to overthrow them coming later in the year. This could be a good historical backdrop for season 3, especially if they want to show Maria's growing anger and darkness within.

This would also be a good time to have Tera reunite with Maria. Reunite them but slowly show Tera, under the influence of control of the Being that Olrox calls Old Man Coyote starts to convince Maria to give into her anger, frustration and rage. Have the being use the love that Maria has for Tera to its own advantage, have it try to sow seeds of doubt and mistrust against Juste and Alucard, have it emotionally manipulate Maria with Tera, knowing that Maria should love her more than anything.

But then we have Juste and Alucard, two very powerful threats to this beings plans for Maria. Juste, as Maria's new father has been able to bring her back from the darkness, to get her to embrace the light and love that she needs to use her magic in the way that she wants to. He's a threat as a parental figure and as a powerful fighter who knows what it's like to lose himself and his magic and can therefore get through to Maria in a way that would threaten this being. However, Juste sees vampires as beyond saving, he's tried to kill Tera twice and he'd do so again. This could work in the beings favour as it could help to create a seed of doubt or wedge between father and daughter.

And then we have Alucard, the man who is probably going to be the biggest threat to the being in its quest to get Maria. Alucard and Maria have a number of similarities, both are deeply tied to the Belmonts and consider them family, both have a vampire for a parent, both have killed their fathers and both have possessed incredible power from a young age. It's clear that the writers want to see them bond and to explore this relationship, whatever form it takes.

I also think that Tera and the Being have been keeping a close eye on these 3 and so is definitely aware of the different dynamics in this trio and how to exploit them as best it can.

However I do think we have 1 important wildcard that I think that no one truly understands - Maria's feelings for Alucard.

I do think that everyone, Juste, Alucard, Tera and the Being are well aware of Maria's feelings for Alucard, but I don't think that anyone, perhaps not even Maria know how deep and strong her love is for him.

So I think that towards the end of the season we'll get a big fight between the Tera, the Being and the trio where Maria will be focus. She'll have already walked down a dark path and done at least 1 dark thing and Juste and Alucard will be there trying to stop Tera and the Being from corrupting her fully.

And then we'll get the beginning of a tragedy, where Tera will try to convince Maria to walk away from her found family and come to her. The Being, fully possessing and controlling Tera will try to use the love that Maria has for her mother in order to get its hands on her.

And here is where it's going to fail. As Tera It's going to harm Juste and then Alucard, seriously harming or about to kill the latter. During the fight Maria's going to have doubts and will be torn between Tera and her found family. But in this moment Maria is going to have to make a terrible, nearly impossible choice about who she loves and needs more. And she's going to choose Alucard. She'll choose Alucard, she'll save and protect him by killing her mother. And Tera will let her, will break through the control that the Being has on her and will do everything in her power to ensure that she dies right then and there and that in doing so will save Maria from this Beings grasp. She'll redeem and save herself through the love she and Maria have for one another.

And she'll die and the Being will lose its host but will still be at large. It will flee and will leave a devastated, broken, guilty and grief stricken Maria who will be just like Alucard was in the aftermath of killing his own father.

[dualemblems]

The fact that Alucard and Olrox know eachother and r soft towards one another made us screech so hard jfjdjf if they ever made a season of how Alucard and Olrox knew eachother prior and also what they were both doing b4 Nocturne we would so be here for it 🙏😍

[beevean]

how can Shanoa look gorgeous in all sorts of haircuts and dresses and tattoos <3

White haired Shanoa is a little blursed lol, but my heart belongs to the one with the cute hat :3

[dahliadreamcraft]

WAIT A DAMN MINUTE

Okay, finally, we’re at a gravesite. Time to finally put this vampire Maxim theory to rest because I’m pretty sure now he’s just dead. I am ready to accept that and move forward treating it as an AU, just show me his grave.

…??? Why is there only one grave?

Okay, yeah that’s Lydie’s grave. That doesn’t surprise me, she literally died in his arms so we know for a fact he saw/held her body at some point with no indication that he lost track of it. Until it’s explicitly said that the grave is actually empty, it’s safe to assume that this all but explicitly confirms Juste buried her body.

So where the fuck is Maxim’s grave??? It should be somewhere nearby?!

This is the wall of graves they showed in that original teaser, is he there in—HIS NAME ISN’T ON FUCKING ANY OF THESE?!

IF THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE HIS GRAVE WHY THE FUCK IS HIS NAME NOT HERE?!?!

MAXIM DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE?!

HE DOESN’T HAVE A GRAVE?!

The way the tree is positioned in all these shots implies the tree might be a substitute for Maxim’s grave, especially in this last shot where it that branch is acting like an arm wrapping around Lydie’s grave.

We know Juste held her body, Lydie’s grave all but directly confirms he eventually buried that body.

Having a tree in place of Maxim’s grave implies HE DIDN’T BURY MAXIM’S BODY.

IF HE DIDN’T BURY MAXIM’S BODY THEN

THEN THAT MEANS—?!

Oh my god, Justebox might actually be canon. Holy shit.

[autumnmobile12]

Here’s a thought:  I think Tera either knew the drunk she went after or she at least knew of him.

Because in a time period where the primary source of everyday entertainment was local gossip, I would bet anything news about 'what the local drunk was up to now' was a popular topic in Richter's community. They seem to live in large town at best, not so much a bustling city, so word would travel relatively quick.  Tera definitely isn't the sort of woman to join in on the gossip to revel in someone else’s misery and misfortune, because with her background, she would 100% recognize alcoholism as the disease it is and not write it off as the simple 'vice' her neighbors would have seen it as. Maybe if she had crossed paths with this man when she was human, she would have offered him her help as her Speaker heritage would have prompted to her to do. Maybe she did offer him her help, repeatedly, but she was never able to draw him out of his spiral. An addict usually can't be helped unless they want to change.

Even though Tera retains many of her human traits and recognizes her love for her daughter, rising as a vampire both awakened a more bleak outlook on the world and diminished her sense of compassion. She didn't really hesitate to go after a human when Olrox suggested she feed soon the way we normally see new vampires in the supernatural genre. Since Tera’s first target was the local drunk, I legitimately think her vampiric dark side came out as, “If I’m going to kill someone to survive, it might as well be this waste of space.” She might have pitied him as a fellow human, and then as a vampire, she saw a use for someone she otherwise viewed as good for nothing else.

[etherati]

Belmont crest and colorrrrssss

I have a lot of thoughts and feels about the colors used in various versions of the Belmont crest in the netflix show, and how it fits into traditional heraldry. I have decided to make that everyone else's problem. So.

In Leon's portrait, we see him in a surcoat of white with the Belmont crest rendered in azure blue.

In traditional heraldry the "white" component of this would be synonymous with the metal silver/argent, as matte white was not a meaningful color choice and all colors had to be combined with a metal (silver or gold) rather than another color. Now, I know that in the Doylesian sense, this color choice was made because of Leon's original character design, which utilized different tradition imagery and had nothing to do with the Belmonts specifically:

But the text is what it is and the show gave us the first Belmont in an azure and argent version of the Belmon crest. Color meanings vary depending on your source, but azure typically referred to truth, loyalty, and unwavering morality. Morality is, of course, a construct--you can imagine that for the rebellious ex-church-knight Belmont it probably had some input from the bible but moreso was informed by his own oath--to "battle the night". Yeah, this gets made fun of--he's the dumbass who wants to fight an entire time of day--but we know what he means, ok. He's swearing to defend the daylight world against the things in the night that would harm it. He is defining his moral position going forward very specifically--he will uphold humanity and destroy that which would cause it harm. In a fic of mine he described it as representing the daylight sky, which given that he's a vampire in that fic carries even more poignancy, but even in the canon version it works, because that is the moral field he is aligning with.

Meanwhile argent/silver generally refers to purity, sincerity, and faith, which yeah, this is definitely a character who has purity of purpose. This combination of colors suits a vision of the Belmonts that served humanity unerringly, who had faith even when the church itself seemed flawed, who defined their morality by the divide between daylight and night and executed it with sincerity and dedication.

Fast forward to Trevor's time. The family has risen and fallen. At its height it was considered a great noble family--a warrior dynasty, as Alucard put it. Trevor's tunic and his armor both bear the crest in gold; once we're in the hold, we see that it's set against a deep burgundy in the official banners and standards. 

Why the change? What does it mean? Red is obvious--it's the warrior side of them, the military might, the weight of generations of fighters and all the blood they've spilt. It's the most common color in heraldry because conflict and war were themselves so common, but the Belmonts (to our knowledge) weren't besieging neighboring Lords' territories. They defined themselves by their fight against the creatures of the night, defined themselves to the point that they became The Fight. The warrior is the largest part of their identity. In the same fic I had Trevor say that the red represented family to him, like bloodlines, which is not the traditional meaning--but given that nothing defined his family or his relationship with them as much as The Fight, I still think he was onto something. Additionally, red can carry the meaning of sacrifice and martyrdom, which also fucking fits, unfortunately.

As for the gold, usually this refers to faithfulness, nobility, constancy, and glory. On its own, it's a statement of those qualities--particularly nobility and faithfulness. Combined with warrior's red, the glory piece of it starts to assert itself. A family of martyrs and warriors, noble and glorious--that's how they saw themselves, anyway. The family had gotten so far up its own ass that it cared more about perpetuating those ideals and standards than it necessarily did about the original purpose and duty of its existence! Eventually Trevor re-finds that purpose, when he drops the cloak in Gresit and re-dedicates himself to protecting the people--but it's worth noting that the crest he displays in that moment is gold alone, without a specific colored field. The version of the Belmonts that defined themselves by the amount of blood they'd shed are dead and buried, their flags tattered; the one who survived has taken their steadfastness, their faithfulness and constancy and nobility, and managed to reconnect it to what they always should have been.

Which brings us full circle, back to Leon's portrait--because there's another crest, there.

Azure and gold. All the steady dedication of a long standing nobility--much less fragile than one man's personal purity of purpose--applied to moral defense of humanity and the daylight world, rather than simply to fighting and glory for its own sake. There's a reason this is the color scheme I plan for Leon to end up in, in my fic-verse, and is the one that I think may have been in between the other two, chronologically. It conveys all the Belmonts are meant to be and do, without reducing them to simply violence. They fight, not for the fight's sake, but to protect the people they've sworn to protect.

Anyway. Yeah. Uh, colors!