JBoc924I was going to post this weeks ago, but due to the ‘Reverie’ DLC add-on having issues with Xbox Live, thus being delayed, I opted to wait until everyone was able to experience this new chapter in Gabriel Belmont’s tale. As we await news on ‘Resurrection’ we’re going to be looking back on ‘Reverie’ and try to see what questions were answered and therefore what new questions were raised for ‘Resurrection’ or perhaps a sequel to answer. We already reviewed ‘Reverie‘, and we even pitched in our theories as to what we thought would happen in the DLC weeks before its release, but now we’re going to be looking back on Mercury Steam’s latest chapter in their Castlevania opus. We’re going to be delving into it with spoilers all around to try and get a sense of what’s to come, so if you haven’t beaten the main story in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow or the new chapter in ‘Reverie’, be warned. Now, let’s get started.
First off, let’s answer the question pertaining to the “unruly evil” that has been debated about for a while leading up to the DLC’s release. Who is this “unruly evil”? Well, it’s none other than The Forgotten One, who you may remember from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence on the Playstation 2. In Lords of Shadow’s universe, The Forgotten One was summoned by the Bernhard family who failed at keeping control over the demonic entity, until the Founders of the Brotherhood of Light, using their combined powers, sealed him within the confines of what was then the Bernhard Castle. Fast-forward up until the time of the actual events unfolding in Lords of Shadow and Carmilla, one of the aforementioned founders, has taken reign over the Bernhard family’s former edifice, ruling out said family and keeping Dr. Friedrich Von Frankenstein as a slave to her sick demented pleasures. And we end up seeing just how sick those pleasures were in ‘Reverie’ thanks to the pooer doctor’s fingers being severed and scattered around the levels.
Gabriel ends up slaying the Vampire Queen thus leaving the demonic castle vacant. You then find out, in the opening scene of ‘Reverie’, that upon killing Carmilla, Gabriel has killed the one person who has been able to keep The Forgotten One from causing chaos to the world, complementing the combined seal brought about by her, Zobek and Cornell all those years ago. Thus, The Forgotten One is no longer “chained” and now Gabriel. after receiving a cry for help from Laura (Carmilla’s former “daughter”), is faced with yet another problem with little time left for him to actually contemplate all the events that have occurred thus far.
Now, here’s my take on this revelation: As aforementioned, The Forgotten One was already featured in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, a game which chronologically comes before all the others in the series (not counting Lords of Shadow). In that game we learn a bit about this uncontrollable demonic force. In Castlevania’s already established timeline and chronology, The Forgotten One was created by mortals and it possesses so much demonic power that it almost lead to the world meeting its end. Like in Lords of Shadow’s lore, The Forgotten One was also sealed within an enclosed area when you fought him with Leon in Lament of Innocence. It’s interesting because, in regards to the main Castlevania timeline, it was never exactly explained how The Forgotten One was sealed. In Lords of Shadow we do get a good amount of explanation behind such an act, though, despite it not being exactly confirmed that Lords of Shadow is in fact vital to the series’ overall lore (which I still strongly consider it as being). It seems that, with the inclusion of The Forgotten One, Mercury Steam is in fact aiming to tie Lords of Shadow with the already-established canon. We’ll have to wait and see how this develops before making any concrete judgements over the matter, though.
The one downside to ‘Reverie’ in relation to The Forgotten One was that we didn’t actually end up fighting him, that’s a right reserved for May’s ‘Resurrection’ DLC, which Konami had previously teased would include a fight with a notorious enemy in the series which we now know is the same as the “unruly evil” teased for ‘Reverie’. Regardless of the fact, ‘Reverie’ ended up on a very high note leaving one with a harmonious sense of desperation (see what I did there?) to see what comes next. But let’s back-track a bit, because the ending not only served to set the stage for Gabriel vs. The Forgotten One, it also gave some insight to the much-talked about epilogue seen upon clearing the main game.
Laura had a suitable role in Lords of Shadow, but she played a much more important one in ‘Reverie’. Gabriel’s act of killing Carmilla left Laura all on her lonesome in the Vampire’s Castle and soon after she realized the consequences of such an act committed by Gabriel who had succeeded in killing all of the Lords of Shadow on his quest to build the God Mask and thus bring back his wife from the dead. The Forgotten One, who was enclosed deep within the Founders’ Fortress in the Vampire’s Castle had been set free upon the death of Carmilla and Laura, realizing the threat of such a demonic monstrosity, had no choice but to contact Gabriel asking for help. On the brink of a near suicide attempt atop the abyss, Gabriel received this call of help and off to the Vampire’s Castle he went. This all ended up with yet another tragic outcome in which another death was needed: Laura’s.
I want to get this out in the open first: Why does every important female figure that has had a significant impact on Gabriel have to die? Granted, Laura and Claudia weren’t as important to Gabriel as his wife Marie, in the long run, but still, they aided him in very important ways, making it possible for him to advance on his journey, and thus on his way to discover the truth about everything. Laura, while almost killing him in the main game, proved to be a valuable ally during the events of ‘Reverie’. She had a familiarity with the castle that her “mother” used to have rule over and because of that she was able to lead the way to the Founders’ Fortress to gain access to where The Forgotten One was being held. This is also brings up something interesting: What if Laura was, prior to becoming a vampire, part of the Bernhard family? Would make sense, having Carmilla keep a member of the family she drove away instead of making Laura’s origins paint her as a completely unrelated character, and this would of course explain Laura’s knowledge of the secret parts within the castle. Surely, this may be answered later on.
Laura’s death was a sacrifice that needed to be made to once again advance Gabriel on his quest, which now consists of ridding the world and saving humanity from The Forgotten One. Gabriel, at his current state will be no match for the Forgotten One, as Laura tells him. What needs to happen in order to place victory within reach is to grant Gabriel vampiric powers. And that’s exactly what happens, moving Gabriel one step closer to his depiction in the main game’s epilogue. What’s interesting here is that Laura, upon practically begging Gabriel to kill her and absorb her powers, has also grown tired with the vampiric life she had been living and the baggage of cruel acts she had committed. She tells Gabriel to free her from her immortality, and this mirrors Gabriel in the epilogue when he states how he can’t live nor die to Zobek. Zobek then goes on to promise Gabriel a way to put an end to his eternal suffering in return for his help in dealing with the impending return of Satan. I just found Laura’s plea for death to be quite a nice little nod to what will eventually happen in the events portrayed in the Epilogue. But, speaking of Gabriel obtaining vampiric powers…
As if the trailers weren’t enough; Gabriel Belmont has many characteristics that paint him as a very tragic figure, one that, with the right trigger, could become completely engulfed in darkness thus becoming a shadow of his former self. This is what happens in Lords of Shadow and it’s depicted justifiably in the game’s post-credit epilogue scene. He lost his wife after going through hell and back trying to resurrect her with the God mask only to find out it doesn’t exactly bring the dead back to life as common knowledge would have it. This, and Gabriel’s overall stance on his religious morals after all the events that have unfolded, is summed up quite nicely when Gabriel utters: “A fool’s hope”. The fact of the matter is, as he’s shown as in the epilogue, Gabriel eventually ends up becoming Dracula and while there’s many debates as to how exactly that may have happened, ‘Reverie’ shows us the definite first step in his path to becoming the prince of darkness.
One may ask: In order for Gabriel (or anyone for that matter) to become the Dracula we all know from the Castlevania series he must be first turned into a vampire, right? This question gets answered at the end of ‘Reverie’. Laura basically sacrifices herself, being sick and tired of her immortal life, by making Gabriel suck the blood out of her. Doing so will also grant Gabriel vampiric powers which we already got a chance to experience in the DLC when playing as Laura in those brief but quite fun segments. ‘Reverie’ ends with a bang and it leaves Gabriel with newly founded abilities ready to be put to use against The Forgotten One, but then as we know, thanks to the epilogue, he will end up mastering his abilities and becoming the main figure behind the creatures of the night.
This brings us to the ‘Resurrection’ DLC where we already know that Gabriel’s main objective will be to defeat The Forgotten One and, by doing so, save humanity. Now, with vampiric abilities intact, Gabriel will be a different warrior than he was before, and a different man as well. I won’t go into speculation on ‘Resurrection’ too much in this article but I will say that I strongly believe that Gabriel’s victory over The Forgotten One will cost him his life; thus setting him up for his first resurrection, perhaps 100 years later where upon waking up he can start his life anew. This new life, of course, may(most likely will) once again result in a lost love of some sort and it will solidify Gabriel as a man going from a righteous life serving God to one belonging to a man completely enveloped in darkness.
