After 5 years, 325 videos, and 123 stories you never knew... we’re finally ready.
Finally ready to go there, FINALLY READY, for that jelly.
That jelly which bounces back and forth to the dope beat of three generations of video
game players, over 21 consoles and arcade cabinets and even some goddamn pachinko machines.
But most importantly YOU are ready for that jelly.
You see, when we make these videos we want you to see them, and because of a certain,
dirty, nasty, AWFUL game company that will go unnamed (screams: KONAMI!) we haven’t
realistically been able dump this junk in our trunk onto the awaiting laps of beautiful
viewers like your mom.
BUT NOW IS THE TIME!
Thanks to the beautiful and talented scholar and gentleman masahiro sakurai and the upcoming
super smash brothers ultimate AND their latest update, CASTLEVANIA is….
Almost relevant again?
WHO CARES!?
The time is nigh my little tree babies!
Time for SIMON BELMONT!
The greatest and most well known of the Belmont clan, protagonists of the legendary series
castlevania.
So prepare your mom’s laps for our trunk junk, close your eyes and open your mind for
today we delve into the lore, and into the more.
Into a tale of a man who looks like that guy who works at that BDSM gay bar in the red
light district I always have to drag my dad out of on friday nights, don't worry dad mom
still doesn't know!
Onward we go to a family history riddled in manipulation, loss and false glory!
This is the story of a legendary man who gave up everything to defeat the evilest of evil
long before vampires turned into sparkly middle aged woman’s wet dreams.
Before whips and chains were a way to sell a novel with below average writing.
This is the story of a supposedly benevolent organization that molded evil into being and
blamed the heroes who seeked to stop it.
This is the story of Simon Belmont, the story you never knew!
Simon Belmont is the protagonist of the original castlevania for the super famicom in 1986.
In order to understand him we must first understand what makes him who he is.
That’s comprised of three things, his family, his whip, and his enemy.
And maybe the church.
Ah times were simpler in 1691, you didn’t need much besides a whip blessed with the
bane of evil and a body like arnold schwarzenegger circa his mr.
galaxy days to get stuff did.
But I digress.
By the time Simon popped out of his mommy’s nono spot his family was already world famous
vampire killers, thanks to his ancestor Trevor who was the first to stick it to dracula wayyyy
back in 1591.
Simon spent his childhood whipping it, whipping it good, and also wondering if he too could
be cool like Trevor.
But then on easter 1691, dracula came back, cause he always comes back, he’s like the
world's slowest and worst period, once every hundred years, but this time it was Simon
who was the extra thicc tampon we needed.
And what better day to have an evil zombie bent on world destruction come back from then
dead than easter am i right?
Will this symbolism be important for a point I’m gonna make later on?
I dunno.
Simon entered Dracula’s castle alone to stop the spread of monsters and evil bad stuff
from hot cheetos place with his family’s whip: the aptly (yet slightly on-the-nose
named:)
vampire killer.
On his way to the throne room Simon took the time out of his day to brutally murder all
of dracula’s friends including the medusa, frankenstein's monster and even DEATH!
Upon reaching dracula simon defeated him thanks to his whip and clearly overactive thyroid.
However he got hurt pretty bad and was left to deal with it on his own.
Guess his holy health insurance didn’t come through after his call of duty was over, there
was a clause, he should have read his paperwork.
In Castlevania 2 Simon’s Quest (bad game) This vampire booboo turns out to be an issue
because it gave Simon vampire aids, or a curse or something.
Simon thought he was going to die but then some chick was like “no you have vampire
aids and have to find all of dracula’s parts that are hangin’ out in some people's mansions
or something and then burn them” so Simon did that and it was really annoying.
All the people in town were stupid and then he had to crouch by this wall even though
no one told him to.
So simon got the dracula parts but SURPRISE there was one more.
That chick was a pretty little liar and told him about 5, but there was really 6 and then
dracula came back instead of dying, so Simon killed again him burned his body and buried
him.
And that’s it.
Except it’s NOT.
For characters to converge There must be reasons.
The story of castlevania spans hundreds of years over a seemingly never ending blood
feud between the Belmont clan and Dracula along with his army of evil.
This was all during a time of holy crusade, commonly called genocide and race war but
it was in god’s name so it was fine.
But why this never ending battle between a family and a spoopy doopy vampire?
Well the answer to that question will reveal the true evil in this epic and the answer
to Simon’s motivations.
The Belmont clan was once of noble blood.
The first named Belmont was Leon, a holy knight and a Baron born in 1072, also he was the
main protagonist of castlevania lament of innocence for that ps2.
leon was a gifted warrior and badass, just like Simon.
He dedicated his entire life to the church and their eradication of undesirables.
But when his love sara was taken from him by a vampire he was forced to renounce all
titles in order to save her.
Upon entering the Vampire’s castle he was given a whip imbued with alchemical properties
by a man named gandolfi who lived on the grounds.
However when it came to fighting Walter the vampire, it was useless.
So instead Leon stole his wifey away from vampire walter and went back to gandalfi,
most likely to cash in his whip warranty.
However sara was bitten by walter and was on her way to becoming a vampire too.
Then Gandalfi was like “if you kill sara and bind her soul to the whip it’d probably
work a lot better” which was super convenient cause she was technically dying anyway.
Sara said it was cool, leon killed her, everyone is sad, boom: vampire killer whip.
Leon then uses the whip to kick walter’s ass and vows that his family will fight evil
forever.
He still wasn't given his land or titles back, but hey, that's the way the communion cracker
crumbles dog.
400 years later in wallachia, monsters started appearing everywhere supposedly lead by a
count named dracula.
The eastern orthodox church was all like “oh no this looks bad for us!
Better send in the god swat team” but it didn’t work, when all hope was lost they
turned to one man, trevor belmont.
Because of Leon’s choice to renounce all titles and his victory over vampire walter
the belmont clan had been more or less exiled and feared because of their power.
Trevor had grown up an outcast like the rest of his family for hundreds of years, however
he, along with a fighter turned demon, a witch, and dracula’s own son took down dracula
for the first time with the help of the vampire killer whip in castlevania 3 Dracula’s Curse.
This re-cemented the belmonts as a revered and honored family.
For a time at least.
Then there was christopher belmont, star of the OG gameboy castlevania games.
Who, you know, killed dracula again a hundred years after trevor or whatever, it really
wasn't anything special so let’s move on.
We haven't even talked about Dracula yet!
While there was always monsters to fight as seen with Leon and Vampire Walter, Dracula
(and to a degree his castle) are an outlier, as they always come back every one hundred
years.
But why does this happen, who is dracula and what made him so upsetti spaghetti?
Dracula was actually leon belmont’s best friend.
A man named mathias whose wife died sometime before Leon’s sara was taken by vampire
walter.
He was a secret alchemist and a profound warrior guy as well as a holy knight alongside of
leon.
When Mathias’s wife died he cursed god for taking everything from him when he had given
everything to the church his whole life.
He vowed to become immortal so he could call god a butt head forever.
The events in Leon’s story (lament of innocence) were carefully calculated by Mathias.
After vampire walter’s defeat at leon’s hands Death reaped his soul; transferring
it into the crimson stone which mathias had acquired at some point.
This in turn turned mathias into the most powerful vampire... ever, or something.
Sensing a new threat, the vampire hunter whip reacted alerting Leon to Mathias’s change.
The vow by Leon Belmont to forever fight evil was a vow against Mathias directly: due to
their broken friendship and betrayal.
Ya know, using your best buds souls to become immortal is a pretty dick move.
Also like, being a vampire is pretty unholy and shit, so im sure the bureaucrats over
at the ye old papal house wouldn’t have appreciated them remaining on good terms anyway...
Mathias stole away to another land where he eventually met a woman named lisa, the two
fell in love and had a baby boy who would turn into the ultimate hot topic wet spot
Alucard.
However, the church found out about the advanced medicinal practices lisa was offering due
to mathias’s alchemy, kidnapped her and crucified her.
So mathias said “my name is dracula now and i hate humans and god is still a butt
head.
This was the beginning of who we know as Dracula told retrospectively in castlevania symphony
of the night.
And happens right before Trevor Belmont’s story in the timeline.
Historically speaking, Castlevania is a game about a man with a chest the size of the front
of a volkswagen cruiser bus whipping dracula up like the cover of one of those weird sexy
books my grandma reads all the time.
Dracula shows up, belmonts come out, they do the fighting and evil is vanquished.
But is it ACTUALLY vanquished?
And is the evil Simon fought way back when ACTUALLY the true evil?
Well no. not really.
Dracula is not really the bad guy here.
It’s the church.
Gasp!
Don’t worry people I’m not exactly riding the Dawkins train all the way to Canada we’re
talking about Castlevania right now.
It’s fictional.
Anyway.
The church was at the root and continuation of all of these problems.
They raised up Leon and mathias to be warriors in the name of god and then abandoned them
at critical points in their lives, when they believed all hope was lost.
The reason Leon had to lay down his rights and honor was because the catholic church
was too busy hunting heretics (which is what they used to call muslims back then) to care
about their own knights.
The church abandoned Mathias to his despair after the passing of his wife.
The Church exiled and turned on the Belmont’s when Leon was victorious; and then four hundred
years later (because of their hatred and lust for power) they crucified Mathias’s sweet
baby mama, pushing him over the edge and creating Dracula vlad tepes.
His hate for god was everlasting, but after the holy rollers permanently put lisa in a
t-pose dracula’s hate for humanity was just as violent.
To add insult to injury the the church then turned to the family they scorned, a demon,
a witch, and a half vampire to fix their problems.
People and creatures they had taught the masses to fear and hate were used to benefit the
church’s own goals, in not only blatant clerical hypocrisy, but after crucifying dracula’s
honey peep for practicing medicine, it’s kind of just insulting.
The Belmont’s themselves are constantly at odds with the church despite having saved
the day literally every time the occasion calls for it, why?
Because the church hates and fears the belmonts.
Because the belmonts have a power they can never possess, a power created by TRUE sacrifice.
The whip was the true evil’s bane, created by a completely selfless act of love and compassion.
Killing one’s true love to do what must be done must (no doubt) be a difficult thing.
An act that Jesus Christ himself, being the sacrificing man that he is, would give a thumbs
up to.
And so when Leon killed his love Sara to imbue the whip with her soul, he and Sara lived
out the sacrifice the Church was supposed to represent.
Yet at this time the Church ruled with an iron fist and despite having more power than
any kingdom were willing to sacrifice nothing to thwart the evil they created.
They feared losing any power at all so they treated the true saviors as pawns and took
all the credit for themselves.
But the Belmonts had the whip, a whip created by sacrifice and the whip only worked for
the Belmonts...and our introduction to them...was Simon.
The story of Simon Belmont is the story of a curse placed on a family by the church.
A curse steeped in tragedy, sorrow and death over hundreds of years.
By caring more about power and authority than it did it’s own masses it created an everlasting
hatred.
That hatred is dracula, a blight on the land entirely brought to be by the actions and
inactions of the clergy.
A creature who rises every 100 years to get his vengeance on the entire world, and who
gets the blame?
Who has to clean up the mess?
The Belmonts, SIMON belmont because of the churches own cardinal sins, jealousy of the
belmont power, hatred of the belmont strength, they are too greedy and proud to admit their
faults.
So the fight goes on, dracula must be culled, but the real enemy lurks in the background,
always pulling the strings and getting in the way.
Simon was the first in our hearts, the first man we piloted through the absolute flaming
hot cheetos place that is dracula’s castle.
The beginning but also middle chapter in a very convoluted story about what it’s like
to be controlled by a theocracy with an iron fist.
What it means to be a slave to a system you were taught to love and admire, to strive
for meaningless glory against an enemy as hopeless and hurt as you are, and to be a
straight up conan looking badass with whip skills that put indiana jones to shame.
That’s the story of Simon Belmont, the story you never knew…
And...that’s my take on Simon Belmont and Castlevania.
Let me know down below what you think!
Hopefully it didn’t feel like I was taking shots at anyone’s religion...I just felt
it was pretty undeniable that the church was being super not cool in this franchise and
wanted to point that out.
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That’s all I’ve got for today I’m Grant and I’ll see you later.
Bye!