The world of Castlevania is a very complicated one, and it’s only grown more chaotic following the death of Dracula in Season 2. Season 3 introduces new threats and players, ultimately setting up an even bigger conflict to come in Season 4. Check out
our full review of Castlevania: Season 3.
From Carmilla’s war plans to Alucard’s tragic turn to the strange saga of Saint Germain, let’s take a closer look at Season 3’s ending and how it sets the stage for Season 4. Full spoilers for Castlevania: Season 3 ahead!
A New Vampire War
With Dracula gone, Carmilla has ambitious plans to fill the void and become the most powerful vampire queen in Europe. As we learn over the course of Season 3, Carmilla wants to expand beyond the limited borders of Styria and grow her kingdom. In the process, she hopes to use the mountains to create an enormous, natural cage for her human victims, ensuring an endless supply of blood for her and her sisters.
Whether Carmilla will be successful in her plot remains to be seen. That’s clearly a storyline being saved for Season 4. However, she finally has a key to gaining the manpower she needs to enact her master plan. Hector is now firmly under her control, so he can create an endless army of Night Creatures. And because those Night Creatures are bound to him, they’re also loyal to Carmilla and her sisters. She now poses a threat that could dwarf even that of Dracula.
However, Carmilla isn’t the only one building an army, and that may seriously complicate matters in Season 4. Hector’s former colleague Isaac is busy creating an army of his own. Even though he lost many of his forces battling the magician in Season 3, it probably won’t take him long to regrow his ranks. One of the big questions leading into Season 4 is whether Isaac will oppose Carmilla or assist her. On one hand, Carmilla had a direct hand in Dracula’s death. On the other, Isaac is hellbent on punishing humanity for destroying his master, and he may find the idea of a several hundred-mile-wide feeding pen to be a very attractive proposition.
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Will Dracula Return in Season 4?
Dracula may have died in Season 2, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Castlevania games, it’s that he never stays gone for long. In the games, Dracula and his floating castle return every 100 years, forcing a member of the Belmont clan or Alucard to take up their weapons and strike down the Lord of Vampires all over again.
The Season 3 finale teases the possibility of Dracula’s return. We learn that Sala and his fellow monks were helping a Night Creature open a portal to Hell that would have allowed Dracula to escape back into the mortal world. We even see a glimpse of Dracula huddled with his wife Lisa, with the two finding comfort in each other even while trapped in a realm of eternal suffering.
It’s not entirely clear from that scene whether Dracula actually wanted to be resurrected. He may have been reaching for freedom, or he could have been trying to close the portal himself in order to stay with Lisa. Either way, Saint Germain managed to seal the portal himself. It doesn’t appear as though Dracula will be returning anytime soon. If the show follows the games (which is never a guarantee), we won’t see Dracula return for another 99 years. The series would have to jump forward in time and leave behind mortal protagonists like Trevor and Sypha.
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Will Alucard Become the New Dracula?
Alucard may have the most tragic character arc in Season 3. Having achieved his life’s goal of slaying his father in Season 2, Alucard was left to find a new purpose. He thought he found companionship and a new role as a vampire hunting mentor with the arrival of Sumi and Taka. Sadly, he learned the hard way how untrustworthy humans can be. In the end, Alucard was forced to kill his students in self-defense. Season 3 ends with Sumi and Taka impaled on stakes outside Castle Dracula – a warning to any others who might make the mistake of double-crossing the son of Dracula.
The takeaway from Alucard’s story in Season 3 is that he’s in serious danger of becoming just like his father. The stakes are an especially powerful reminder. There’s a reason Vlad Tepes had the nickname “Vlad the Impaler.” Alucard’s final line even acknowledges his decision to borrow a page from the Dracula family playbook.
If things keep unfolding as they are, Alucard may become every bit the tyrannical villain Dracula was. He’s immortal, yet has no one to share his endless life with. He’s isolated from humanity and learning the hard way that humans can’t be trusted. And as Alucard continues to explore Castle Dracula and unlock its hidden secrets, he may gain even greater power at the expense of his soul.
Just as Lisa temporarily showed Dracula a better way, Alucard’s only hope may be a reunion with Trevor and Sypha. We have to assume their paths will cross again, but it’s hard to say whether Alucard will be friend or foe by that point. The series may not even need to resurrect Dracula.
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What Happened to Saint Germain in the Infinite Corridor?
Saint Germain is one of the more memorable additions to the cast in Season 3. Germain is based (very loosely, as is generally the case with this series) on the character from the 2005 video game Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. The game presents Germain as a time traveler whose abilities have granted him full knowledge about the world and its history. There, Germain is first an antagonist and then an ally to Hector as the former Forgemaster pursues Isaac.
Obviously, a lot has changed in the transition to the animated series. The show is somewhat more ambiguous about Germain’s background. He wears an hourglass pendant, but whether he can freely time travel is never revealed. Instead, we come to learn Germain is obsessed with gaining access to the Infinite Corridor. Another element borrowed from Curse of Darkness, the show depicts the Infinite Corridor as a sort of wormhole allowing people to travel across space and time and reach other universes. Germain has used the Infinite Corridor in the past, suggesting he may hail from another time and possibly another world altogether. We also learn he lost a loved one inside the Infinite Corridor, motivating him to try and find a new access point and somehow rescue them.
Germain winds up getting his wish in the finale. Sort of. He helps close to the portal to Hell and prevents Dracula’s return, but in the process he’s dragged into the Infinite Corridor. Germain’s parting words are a promise to find Trevor and Sypha again. But as to where he’ll wind up now, that’s really anyone’s guess. He could be dragged into the future. If the series ever does jump ahead 100 years to Dracula’s resurrection, that would be one way of including a familiar face. Or Germain could wind up in an alternate universe. Showrunner Adi Shankar has teased a Devil May Cry series linked to Castlevania as part of his “Bootleg Multiverse,” and Germain could wind up being the character that links the two series.
While Germain finds a more or less happy ending in the finale, given that he achieved his goal and has a chance to locate his missing loved one, the character may be destined for a darker fate. We can’t help but notice a strong resemblance between Germain and the magician Isaac battles in Episode 9. Could it be that Germain is driven insane during his time in the Infinite Corridor, emerges in the past and enslaves an entire city of innocent people?
For more on the future of the series, see how a Castlevania/Devil May cry shared universe could work. Then learn about all the video game movies in development right now.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
