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Villain Overview

Why is it that only human hands that can reach into Hell? Don't you think that's weirdly f*cked up? I can't do it... but you could. In your human greed, your human need, you could and would do anything to bring him back.
~ Death mocking Saint Germain and human nature.
I was put here at the dawn of life on Earth, to feed on the last breath of every one of you f*ckers. I'm a little more than a... "thing".
~ Death when confronted by Trevor Belmont.

Death, also known by his disguises Varney and The Alchemist, is the overarching antagonist of the 2017 Netflix's animated dark fantasy series Castlevania, serving as the main antagonist of the final season. He is based on the character of the same name from the video games.

He is an ancient elemental spirit from the dawn of life on Earth, that feeds on the death of all living creatures. Dissatisfied with the frequency of death in the world, Death was delighted with Count Dracula's genocidal campaign against all of humanity. Enraged by his premature defeat, Death sought to resurrect Dracula so he may continue to feed from his carnage and gain ultimate power for himself.

In English, both his true form and Varney are voiced by Malcom McDowell (who also portrayed Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange, and Mad Mod in Teen Titans) while the Alchemist is voiced by Christine Adams. In Japanese, both his true form and Varney are voiced by Satoshi Tsuruoka (who also voices Zank, Bluebeard and Tamami Kobayashi).

Nature[]

There will be murder on a scale never before seen. I will feed and become the strongest creature on this Earth. So do it, finish it. It'll be fun.
~ Death revealing his goal to Saint Germain.

In contrast to his original video game incarnation, Death in this series is not the literal Grim Reaper, but rather a similar primal elemental spirit of death. While separate from the mythological figure, he did inspire the mythology when ancient humanity did not understand what they were looking at when they saw his true appearance. He merely took a liking to the name, adopting it and the associated mythos for himself.

Not only does he get fed whenever a life ends, the more he feeds the more powerful he becomes. The eons have made Death powerful enough to control the Infinite Corridor, a gateway between dimensions. Despite this, as a spirit Death's ability to act on Earth is limited and needs to use others to further his goals. For example, he cannot reach into Hell to pluck Dracula and Lisa's souls himself since only human hands can do so, so he has to manipulate Saint Germain and Dracula's remaining followers to do so for him.

Appearance[]

In the guise of Varney, Death has long, unkempt black hair and wears a disheveled wide-collared trenchcoat and fingerless gloves. As the female Alchemist he has dark skin, glowing blue tattoos and wears a hooded, sleeveless robe and a silver necklace and earrings.

His true appearance is a large, skeletal creature with grey muscles still on his upper arms, torso and hands. His skull-like head has bony spikes pointing upwards, forming a crown of sorts and his lower ribs form a circle that reaches far above above his head like a mockery of an angelic halo.

He only wears a few pieces of purple cloth over his shoulders and his lower half that resembles a cloak. Once his plan was foiled, Death absorbed the energy from the key he gave to Saint Germain and grew to colossal size, creating a massive scythe adorned with skulls to wield in battle against Belmont.

Personality[]

No. You're only a thing. You're only an old killer. You don't make anything, you don't live. You just eat and hide.
~ Trevor calling out Death for his parasitic personality and actions.

Death is cold, aloof and imposing, displaying poise and assurance at first, and remaining controlled even when violently lashing out at the heroes for thwarting his plan. Contrary to his formal, respectful demeanor in the games, he is awfully self-centered, scornful, petty, and incredibly rude, showing a complete lack of respect for everyone. He fakes all politeness while threatening people into submission in the same breath, frequently boasting about his own importance and power, while his vulgarity and frequent swearing is only rivaled by Trevor Belmont.

Death is immensely intelligent, cunning and manipulative. Using seemingly unrelated and unassuming aliases, he hides his true nature from everyone to use them without rising suspicion, using Saint Germain's love for his lost partner against him, only revealing himself when his plan reached its final, seemingly unstoppable, stage.

He cares only about orchestrating as many demises as possible, being strongly frustrated their low frequency but delighted by Dracula's genocide. He seeks nothing less than the eradication of all life, both to finally satiate his hunger and more importantly to break free from all restrains and become totally all-powerful.

As far as he's concerned, one is either something to be murdered for nourishment or manipulated for his end. He deliberately attempted to resurrect Dracula and his wife in a single body, knowing the experience would drive them mad and turn them into his perfect killing machine. When Trevor Belmont foils his plan and annoys Death with his attacks, he declares that he will kill Trevor's girlfriend Sypha Belnades once he's finished him just to spite him.

Biography[]

Background[]

Death is as old as the world and life itself and enjoys to pose as the actual god of death, despite not being the real deal. Over a hundred years before the start of the story, he assumed the aspect of the Vampire Lord Varney and joined Dracula's court. He may have influenced Dracula's ruthless tendencies and the Bishop's fanaticism to start the conflict of the series.

Season Four[]

Death's Disguises

Death's two fake identities, Varney and the Alchemist.

Death's presence in the story is first alluded to in the first episode "Murder Wakes It Up". After the destruction of Lindenfeld due to the actions of the Visitor and Prior Sala, Trevor Belmont and his companion and lover Sypha Belnades traveled through Wallachia to hunt the monsters left behind after Dracula's death.

They discover that several vampires, humans and monsters are separately attempting to resurrect him, one of these being a group of human cultists in the midst of sacrificing innocent children. Killing the cultists before they could go through with it, Trevor and Sypha figure out that their plan was to offer the children's souls to Death in hopes that he may give Dracula back to them. Trevor explains Death's nature, hinting his existence, and notes that while Death is certainly lethal, he is not actually capable of doing so.

Trevor and Sypha track the cultists back to the ruined city of Targoviste, the place where Dracula's wife Lisa Tepes was burned at the stake by the Bishop and where he began his genocidal war against humanity. Some survivors still remain, though vampires and monsters still roam the city. In the guise of the vampire Varney, Death watches Trevor and Sypha alongside his Slavic vampire companion Ratko from atop a tower. He complains to Ratko that he was sent here by Dracula at the beginning of the war and how everyone is making things so difficult for him, much to Ratko's annoyance.

Varney and Ratko prepared an ambush inside of a barn and watch the duo fight against their night creatures from the roof. Since the trap was initially meant for a group of remaining knights, Varney complains that the two showed up again to ruin it. While Ratko commends their fighting prowess, Varney just considers them annoying. When the knights finally arrive and manage to help kill the night creatures, Varney and Ratko decide it is best to retreat. Trevor and Lisa gather artefacts in the catacombs, and after the city leader Zamfir is murdered, they head back to Dracula's infamous Castle, the Castlevania.

In order to complete his plan of resurrecting, Death needs the help of a living human. He contacts Dracula's loyal follower Isaac via a magical mirror, but discovers to his surprise that Isaac is busy with his own plans. Varney attempts to convince Isaac to aid him, but he considers his own path more important and cuts Varney off. Varney complains about Isaac's lack of respect for him, to Ratko's continued annoyance, and declares that they do not need him. He also helps Hector, who is trapped in Carmilla's Castle but works his way to freedom.

Meanwhile, in the Infinite Corridor, the dimensional gateway opened by the Visitor, Saint Germain meets a mysterious female Alchemist who tells him that he needs to relinquish his morals to control the Corridor and be reunited with his long-lost lover. To do so, he must create a hermaphrodite homunculus called a Rebis.

Saint Germain takes profit of the evacuation of the village of Danesti by Alucard, constantly attacked by monsters. As Alucard is relocating the villagers to the Castlevania, Saint Germain enters the castle with them and establishes his laboratory. In fact, the monsters are sent by the powerful Vampire Knight Dragan, a former vassal of Dracula, who provides dead souls to Saint Germain to harness and use to open the Infinite Corridor, keeping Alucard at bay with a Spirit Barrier.

Varney later enters Saint Germain’s laboratory with a magic mirror, revealing himself as the Alchemist and Death. He convinces Saint Germain to help complete his plans by tricking him into believing he could reunite with his lover, only revealing the truth as Dracula is about to be revived. He threatens Saint Germain into housing the revived souls of Dracula and Lisa into the Rebis, driving both insane and bend on eradicating all life for him to feed.

Trevor and Sypha reunite with Alucard, killing Dragan and his captains, and barging the laboratory, interrupting the resurrection process, but the barrier keeps them away. As Dracula's and Lisa's souls enter the Rebis, Trevor breaks through the barrier and destroys it by combining the Cross and Holy Water. (Little do they know that the Rebis' destruction enabled both Dracula and Lisa to fully resurrect.)

Livid that his plans are foiled, Death takes control of the Corridor to boost his might and grow giant, while Saint Germain is spurned by his lover. Trevor battles Death but cannot do a thing, as the evil spirit taunts him and boasts that he cannot harm him with any weapon he had. Eventually Death tries to kill Trevor with a massive wave of flame. Barely escaping, Trevor reveals a god-killing blade found in Targoviste. Given the unique and devastating power which is said to be a murder-suicide pact created by God for a last resort, he uses all his might to stab Death in the head, killing him in a massive explosion and vanishing in the blast.

With peace returned at last, Alucard and Sypha build a city under the Castlevania for the survivors to thrive. Trevor reappears, having been teleported to safety through the Infinite Corridor by a dying and repentant Saint Germain, to build a brighter future with his friends.

Powers And Abilities[]

Death is extremely powerful, arguably on par with Count Dracula himself, and possibly even mightier in the final showdown. He has full control over the Infinite Corridor and where it leads and can enter it at will. He can summon and control spirits, conjuring a nigh impenetrable Spirit Barrier. Finally, he can assume any aspect he wants.

Having fed from Dracula's rampage, he can manifest on the Earthly Plane, though his powers remain limited. Drawing powers from the death he spread and the Spirit Realm in the climax, he grows huge enough to dwarf the towers of the Castlevania, and strong enough to cause explosions when striking his palm on the ground or to slice stone buildings with his scythe. He shrugs off all of Trevor Belmont's attacks, being only felled by a divine artifact.

Trivia[]

  • In contrast to his original video game incarnation, this version of Death holds no true loyalty towards Dracula and only sees him as a tool to further his own ends with, similarly to the necromancer Zobek from the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow continuity.
  • Death's disguise as Varney is a reference to Sir Francis Varney from the novel Varney the Vampire, also known as Feast of Blood, written by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. Published between 1845 and 1847, the character predates Bram Stoker's Dracula and introduced many elements that would later be associated with vampires, such as their two long fangs and enhanced physical strength.
    • Varney's appearance in Season 4 calls to mind earlier designs for Count Dracula, as seen in games released before Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and in Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
  • It's been hypothesised that Death could've orchestrated Lisa's death at the Bishop's hands to motivate Dracula into initiating his genocide in order to feed, due to Death's shapeshifting abilities and manipulation skills. However, there is no clear evidence suggesting that this is the case.
  • Why Dracula relocated Varney to Targoviste is unclear. Possible reasons include that Dracula found Varney annoying, that he assumed Varney was not actually skilled at killing like most others assumed (and incorrectly), or that Dracula actually knew "Varney" was actually Death and had him relocated to keep him from interfering with his plans (although unlikely given that both of them wanted omnicide at that point in time).
  • The name of Death's Mega form is never stated in the show and is only revealed in supplementary material.
  • It seems strange that Death was starving, given that the current era for him had a large number of deaths due to poor medication and food distribution compared to the 21st century.
    • Since he can control the infinite corridor, it's possible that he can move to other worlds and realities as a way to gain more souls, which would make Death even more dangerous than how he already is.
  • The Death statue that Trevor and Sypha encounters refreances his Nintendo 64 counterpart, which appears in Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.

External Links[]

Navigation[]

             CastlevaniaLogo Villains

Original Series
Major Villains
Carmilla | Chaos | Death | Dracula | Shaft
Secondary Villains
Actrise | Albus | Barlowe | Beelzebub | Brauner | Celia Fortner | Dario Bossi | Dmitrii Blinov | Elizabeth Bartley | The Forgotten One | Galamoth | Gilles de Rais | Graham Jones | Isaac | Joachim Armster | Legion | Medusa | Menace | Olrox | Ortega | Stella and Loretta | Succubus | Time Reaper | Walter Bernhard

Lords of Shadow
Dracula | Satan | Zobek | Carmilla | Cornell | Satan's Acolytes (Raisa Volkova | Nergal Meslamstea | Guido Szandor) | The Forgotten One | Inner Dracula | Toy Maker

Netflix Series
Dracula's Army
Dracula
Dracula's Court: Carmilla | Godbrand | Chō | Dragoslav | Raman | Sharma | Zufall | Isaac | Hector | Death
Minions: Blue Fangs | Slogra and Gaibon | Priory of Lindenfeld (Prior Sala | The Visitor) | Dragan | Ratko | Night Creatures (Flyseyes)
Council of Sisters
Lenore | Morana & Striga
Others
The Church (The Bishop | Archbishop) | Scarred Man | The Judge | Sumi and Taka | The Magician | Saint Germain | Olrox | Erzsebet Báthory | Drolta Tzuentes | Abbot Emmanuel | Comte de Vaublanc | Marquis | Nikolai

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