Castlevania/WMG

The rise of Dracula is a big plot point in the new continuity, if not The Biggest
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate revolves around both Simon and Trevor, apparently through time. Konami has said that Lords of Shadow 2 will be the last of the Lords of Shadow arc, which leads to the thought that this is the last one to do with. If Simon and Trevor are thrust into this time, logic would dictate it's a big deal. Why not just use Gabriel again if it wasn't?

The Morrises inherited the Vampire Killer Whip so the Belmonts can cleanse themselves of the taint left by Dracula after Richter's Brainwashing in Symphony of the Night.
While it can be argued that Soleiyu was the first Belmont to be corrupted by Dracula in the series (or, before then, Simon with his curse), Soleiyu had just come of age to inherit the whip, and had not been given it when he was turned (and Simon didn't turn evil through the curse, it just tried to kill him); Richter was the first Belmont to be a full-fledged Vampire Hunter, whip and all, to fall to the Dark Lord's thrall. Also,, meaning that the Morrises gained control of the whip sometime after Symphony, soon enough for Richter not to be able to give it to his heir in between. The only explanation for why the Belmonts would give the whip to the Morrises for safe-keeping for so long, is that the events of Symphony corrupted the line to the point where they couldn't wield it properly, and needed to cleanse themselves of the corruption before they could be "accepted" by the whip again.
 * Or Richter could've been the end of the Belmont bloodline. He doesn't strike me as the "having kids" type. And he looked rather dashing in that unbuttoned high-collared shirt with his loose, blowing brown hair.
 * Where did Julius come from, then? Plus, in Portrait of Ruin, it outright says that the Belmonts are prophesied not to use the whip until the Final Battle in 1999- a statement implying a continued existence.
 * There are alternative theories on the Julius part.
 * Also, Annette Renard would like to have a word with you.
 * ANNETTE PWNZ J00. * cough* Seriously though - even if Richter didn't have kids (unlikely, in that time period, for this to be the case) - does anyone really truly honestly think the family doesn't have any other candidates besides Richter's theoretical kids to pick up the whip, per generation? It's the 1790s, Richter probably has a bunch of siblings. The whip could be taken up by one of their kids. So, too, would Leon have had a ton o' siblings - and he cannot be the firstborn son of his family, because if he were, there would be no way in hell he'd have been crusading! We only SEE one Belmont at a time, but given the family's, uh, fortitude...they're probably pretty prolific too. There's probably several kids per generation who can use the whip, but it's the guy (or girl, depending on if you're pro-or anti-IGA; this troper is ambivalent but has seen giant flamewars oh god) who is the most skilled and has the most clout with the subweapons and so forth who goes to kick Dracula in teh harbl. tl;dr Families back then WERE BIG. The only Belmont who's real likely to have been an only child by birth is Julius. The others may have had siblings die, or whatnot, but the Belmonts we see in games would not be only children. In the time period we're talking, Fridgery aside, that didn't really happen so much. People took the 'be fruitful' business very seriously back in the day!
 * Richter being the last Belmont is definitely Jossed by Order of Ecclesia; . However,  }, so it's likely this WMG is viable.
 * This troper always assumed it was a "not until the destined battle, slow down there Rick-box" kind of thing. Like, the Belmonts can't use it as dictated by destiny until blah blah blah fishcakes.
 * This (JET-programmer of a) troper hopes that fucking godawful tedious shitwagon sound drama monstrosity is never ever made anything like canon, because it's like they found some Japanese teenybopper's badfic and made it into a script. Richter's an emotard, Maria's a damsel in distress, there's some bunch of Gary Stus running around, and it's generally utter shit. This troper loves her some IGA, don't get her wrong, but between that and Judgment (it's only sold like 4000 copies over here lolsob), she wants to beat him with his hat. At least the Pachi-Slot game is pretty. :(

The "Castle B" in "Harmony of Dissonance" is in Hell.

 * For one, just look at the backgrounds of the first area of Castle B that you see: a Red, Volcanic landscape, and it's established to be a metaphysical place, fabricated through Maxim's mind, going through his own personal hell for the duration of the game.

The events of the proposed game Castlevania: Resurrection caused a temporal paradox in the timeline, and the series retcons are an effort to resolve it.
While the game was never released, information about the storyline is still accessible to us. Apparently there was a battle against a countess and Dracula in the year 1666 that was stopped by two Belmonts: Sonia (a 15th century Belmont introduced in Castlevania Legends) and Victor (a 19th century Belmont who attempted to flee the family duty, and who had a passing resemblance to Tim Curry). Unfortunately, such events do not stand up well in the space-time continuum, and a paradox was inevitable. The only way to save the timeline from imploding upon itself was to ensure that it could never happen. Specifically, by removing both characters from history. Thus, the events of Castlevania Legends no longer happened, and the question of how the Belmont line got its start was resolved with the introduction of a man by the name of Leon. Meanwhile, removing Victor from the 19th century led to the complete absence of the Belmont clan from that moment forward, so other families were forced to fight Dracula in their place. (How Julius managed to reemerge in 1999 is not explained.) It can also be noted that these actions also removed every moment in the series in which Death stood on two legs, but this may just be coincidental.

There was no "Castle War" during Dracula's final defeat in 1999.
There was a battle, but in no way was the world's governments or military involved in it. The official storyline for Aria of Sorrow doesn't specify who Julius and his gang brought with them against Dracula, but it seems unlikely that any of the worlds' governments or military would believe in the threat of Dracula or his minions to help. The church may have formed some sort of army against the Dark Lord, but that's about it. Plus, there were plenty of unrelated armed conflicts going on around the area for Dracula to forge his own army out of, so the undead soldiers you fight in the game aren't necessarily military personnel specifically sent to fight Dracula. There's also the behavior of Hammer when you meet him in the castle; he seems genuinely surprised at all of the weird goings-on around him, like he wasn't briefed at all about Dracula or his castle; if the military was involved with Dracula's 1999 defeat, and they saw his castle reappear, you'd think that they'd give their soldiers a short disclosure on what to expect before sending them out to investigate.
 * It's possible the army sent in a small detachment (judging by the grenade-wielding Soldier Zombies, though those could have come from an earlier war) and is keeping things secret from Hammer, knowing that he could handle himself (since there's evidence he was supposed to be a playable character at one point).
 * The descriptions on the Zombie soldiers and officers make it pretty clear that they died in the last battle. It's never explained exactly what happened before the final battle, so it's possible that Dracula was able to gain enough power to be an open threat. In which case the world's governments would have sent in the troops simply because of the threat, even if they didn't believe it was a centuries-old personification of Darkness in the form of a Vampire. The reason they sent Hammer in alone could have been because they didn't believe the reports of the survivors (indeed, there might not have been any), and sent Hammer in for an initial investigation.
 * I don't buy it; whenever Soma is told an account of what happened in 1999, the only things that are mentioned definitively is that Julius, Alucard, and a Belandes (probably Yoko's mother) took down Dracula and the Hakuba Shrine cast a spell that sealed him and his castle up in the eclipse; there's no mention at all of any "Castle War" or soldiers helping them, just them three and the Shrine. In fact, the only evidence that there was, in fact, a Castle War going on is in the descriptions of two measly zombie enemies, and that's hardly conclusive. I maintain that, like the cake, the Castle War is a lie, and the final destruction of Dracula really was caused by three Vampire Hunters and a Japanese shrine. A quick read-through of the actual dialog within the game corroborates this.
 * The zombie soldiers are a Continuity Nod to Symphony of the Night, which had Eastern Church soldier zombies from a similar, medieval attack on Castlevania. That, combined with Castlevania III talking about Dracula's attempted conquest of Europe, shows that he's not all that concerned with keeping up The Masquerade. Sure, the final destruction was really caused by the heroes, but that doesn't mean the government didn't also stage a military operation against this demonic castle that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. There's no doubting that there were modern soldiers who died in Castlevania: it's likely that they just didn't do any good, and after the massacre the world still had to rely on Julius to do the job right.
 * What if the zombies were actually just soldiers who were already dead in 1999 (or killed then) and resurrected to battle Julius and his gang? The "Demon Castle War" the description refers to is just the battle between Julius, his allies, and the monsters of the castle.
 * We know Julius, Alucard and a Belandes were present at the shrine during the eclipse in 1999, that doesn't mean they couldn't have brought backup. Though I'm thinking they decided against bringing soldiers and called the Ghostbusters

Dracula doesn't come back every hundred years, he comes back when evil is waxing
Early games have said that Dracula comes back every one hundred years. Of course, with sequals up the wazoo, and an attempt to put everything into a semi-coherent timeline, this theory, taken at face value, doesn't fly. However, if one assumes that the forces of darkness ebb and flow like tides, and that there is a cyclical pattern that repeats roughly every hundred years, then it starts to make sense. Dracula could, in theory, be resurrected at any time, but it's far easier to do so when Evil is at a high point. As well, every major appearance by Dracula is followed by a sequel a few years later. Evil may be waning, but it's still high enough to allow an easy resurrection.
 * This also explains Bloodlines and Portrait of Ruin. Before those times, Humanity never had the capacity for such bloodshed and death in such a short time. So many deaths at once caused an unexpected 'jump' in Evil, letting Dracula come back early.
 * Really, after World War 1 and World War 2, the normally cyclic flow of evil was thrown off-kilter, hence his return in 1999.

Julius is Richter under a new name, or Richter's son after temporal displacement

 * According to the new leaks given from Order of Eccelsia, Richter has once again disappeared. I doubt IGA would have him Brainwashed and Crazy again. And that thanks to the current canon arrangement, Richter is the last one to hold the name Belmont until Julius comes along a century later. So it's possible he disappeared out of his time and into the 20th century.
 * Another possible evidence is that they do have nearly the exact same shade of auburn hair (the other Belmonts tend to be blond or dark-haired, and Simon has a very different shade of red).

Dracula is Jesus
He is resurrecting himself over and over again until he can be purged of his centuries of evil by being reborn as the pure-hearted Soma Cruz/Cross. This eventuality means the end is nigh.
 * It really doesn't help that Soma can walk on water in both games.
 * Neither does
 * That was actually

Saint Germain is the Meddling Monk from Doctor Who
Why not?

He's not as malicious as The Master, and he's certainly no Doctor, so it's probably the Time Lord at work, trying to stop Hector's quest out of amusement. Not to mention the anachronistic, but gentleman's outfit does suit his character.

Speaking of Time Lords, Near from Death Note is Aeon.
Oh, he was quietly amusing himself as different detectives (including L) throughout the ages, but his experience with Shinigami meant he was hired to clean up the "Galamoth Incident." The Time Storm that got him involved in meant he wasn't present during the Time Lord's erasure.
 * I was just about to propose that Soma is Near, because of the white hair and coat.

Soma isn't really Dracula
He's Tom ('Soma') Cruise ('Cruz') in Gratuitous English!!

Dracula keeps losing to the Belmonts on purpose
With the power of the Crimson Stone and Death as his personal servant, each demise-and-resurrection allows Dracula's soul to return to the Crimson Stone over and over, multiplying his accumulated power exponentially. This is the reason he becomes more powerful from game to game. It's all part of a massive Xanatos Gambit to reach the pinnacle of his power, and either he finally acted on this seriously in 1999 and was narrowly and finally defeated, or even that was part of his Gambit and he's using Soma and the others post-1999 as Unwitting Pawns to engineer his ultimate victory!

Kid Dracula is a cutesey, overstylized retelling of Alucard's early days, when he still supported and worked with his father.
Kid Dracula is made by Konami, and you are assisted by Death throughout the game. Though clearly meant as a parody in the style of Parodius, the general plot is still what actually happened. And the final boss being Galamoth leads to the next WMG...

Galamoth wants to usurp Dracula and become the Dark Lord.
Galamoth's bestiary entry in Symphony of the Night says that he has ambitions to rule the netherworld. The Frozen Halves (Halfs?) are also said to be loyal to Galamoth. Which is kind of odd. Why mention the loyalty of one standard mook, unless there's a possibility they aren't loyal to Dracula himself?

This, by itself, isn't much, especially since lord of the Netherworld could mean many things. But as the above entry states, if Kid Dracula is taken as canon, at least the bare bones, that means that Galamoth has warred against Dracula and his son before, possibly able to usurp his rule and win over most of his minions, aside from Death.

And, of course, in SOTN, Galamoth is one of the toughest (Relatively speaking) bosses in the entire game. So, Galamoth is a powerful Demon who wants to take over Dracula's power. Ever since Alucard took him down in his younger days, Galamoth has been kept under control by Drac, but he still plots and keeps his loyal Frozen Halves at the ready, looking for an opportunity to strike and become the next Dark Lord.
 * Aeon's recently announced storyline in Castlevania: Judgment involves Galamoth doing just this. That is, if a franchise crossover fighting game can be considered canon...

And if we're going to discuss that subject...

Galamoth is an alien.
"Magical being" refers to his ability to use magic, not his origin. For that, you need to go back to Kid Dracula.

In both versions, you fight Galamoth for the first time after ascending a long vertical tube of mechanical platforms to a space-like vista. In the Game Boy version, his sword is replaced by a light saber, and his body turns out to be a robot piloted by one of the "alien people" from a previous stage. The Famicom version goes on to a flying ship complete with Wave Motion Gun, and both versions go on to have boss fights against large robots, one of which is several screens tall. The final form of Galamoth has a head that vaguely resembles the titular villain of Alien, and the Game Boy version has a series of similar creatures (even referred to as aliens in the manual) on the way to the final confrontation. In the Game Boy version, Galamoth even talks about the many worlds he has conquered.

This is a bit too consistent to be a mere throwaway gag.

Combine the above three WMGs, and you are left with an alien invasion that took place before the end of the 15th century and was thwarted by Alucard. The perpetrator was forced into Dracula's service, but continues to scheme to overthrow his master. It's not very realistic, but hey, who wouldn't want to have a giant treacherous alien magician demon lizard stomping around?

More specifically, Galamoth is a Bacterian, who had traveled through time and dimensions.
Bacterians are inherently dark, "demonic" creatures. Now, possibly Galamoth, after several temporal displacements seeking to gain power, ended up in Kokoro Belmont's universe. After being defeated by her he went back in time to make the Belmont clan not exist by helping Dracula. However he noticed he could be much more powerful if he used his nature as a creature "born from the greed of mankind" and become the Dark Lord, so Kid Dracula happened.

Soma is not the only time Dracula has resumed a human personality
Since Dracula is inexplicably stated to be Vlad Tepes in Symphony of the Night and the games starring the Morris family, yet in Lament, he's Matthias Cronvqist, what does this mean?

Perhaps it means after a certain time a Belmont had kicked his ass for good, the Powers That Be decided to let Dracula be reborn as a Human - Namely, Vlad Tepes. However circumstances worked against him for becoming a decent human being - between being a Political Hostage as a child, and the death of his wife... again, he manages to find Death and reforge their agreement. Thus, becoming a vampire again.

Later on, in a failed Xanatos Gambit He is reborn as the child prodigy Malus, to gain more power and to trick the Belmont to trust him, possibly spurning yet another chance at Redemption.

Soma is the fourth time he lived as a human, and the third time he's been reincarnated. So far, he has yet to meet a blonde beauty with some variation of the name Lisa, so he may actually stay Good.
 * Or how about this--Legends did happen, but in 1431, not 1450. It hasn't been that long since Lisa died and Matthias declared war on the world. Alucard has just defected. And, as part of his campaign, not-Dracula-yet has recently finished the work meant to make him a true Prince of Darkness who will, one way or another, keep resurrecting. However, it doesn't work right. Sonia Belmont kills him, and he reincarnates "normally" as Vlad Draculea, born in that year. As twisted as he gets, it still takes a blood sacrifice to really kick off the spell, not just any sacrifice but his own. Thus, in 1476, when Vlad is killed, he finally resurrects "properly" and picks up his battle with humanity, leading directly into the plot of Castlevania III.
 * I thouight the explanation was that Matthias started calling himself Vlad Tepes some time after the real one's death to freak everyone out. An, "Oh, shit, he's back!" type thing.
 * That's what the translations at armster.org indicate. "Dracula" is a pseudonym. Because, let's face it, Cronqvist isn't a very scary surname.
 * In response to the bit about Soma staying good - it's pretty clear that it wouldn't take much to turn him evil. The moment he thinks Mina has been killed, the sheer volume of his hatred calls forth the dark power and makes him the new Dark Lord, and let's face it, it wouldn't be hard for someone to ACTUALLY kill Mina if they were powerful enough to be Castlevania villains to begin with.
 * Every time there has been an assassination attempt against Mina, Genya has been there to intervene. Not even the most powerful Castlevania villains have any history of defeating him.
 * Also, recall that in the good ending of Dawn of Sorrow, Soma mentions, in so many words, that his confrontations with the Dark Lord candidates had all but convinced him that the return of the Dark Lord was inevitable. It's likely that when he confronted Celia, Mina was in fact the only reason he thought he had left to stay human.
 * If Mina getting hurt is the catalyst for Dracula's return, I'd hate to see what happens if someone cuts him off in traffic, takes the last Fudgsicle, or he's been in a lineup for two hours.

Lisa/Elisabetha is a construct that's part of Death's Gambit Roulette to create a never-ending battle between good an evil
Since Symphony of the Night, it has been stated Dracula's main motive is the death of his beautiful wife, the first from a plague, causing Matthias to Rage Against the Heavens and made a deal with Death to become Dracula, the second by the hands of the very humans his wife tried to heal, turning Alucard temporarily against humans, and cementing Dracula's genocidal tendencies

Notice the women looked exactly alike, they even have very similar names, since Lisa is a shorten form of Elizabeth. This can't be just coincidence, and who would benefit from tearing out the Vampire's non-beating heart and stomping on it repeatedly?

Maybe it's his boney bosom buddy Death. Death is one of the few constants in every game, and always at hand. Notice he has nothing to say to Dracula's reincarnation Soma, though you would expect him to.

Why? Perhaps he orchestrated the repeated doom romance to manipulate Dracula to do evil, downgrading Drac to Unwitting Pawn and elevating Death to The Man Behind the Man.
 * In that case, perhaps he spends his Sorrow time patiently waiting for someone to kill his latest construct, Mina.
 * The Elisabetha/Lisa thing is probably IGA fanboying his face off at Coppola's Dracula film. Ditto Mina. But this theory is quite badass.

Mina Hakuba is the Reincarnation of Elizibetha/Lisa
Mina Harker, Mina Hakuba, whatever. Note that anything hints at killing her, he turns evil without even bothering to stick by and check if she's actually dead.

Death is actually the Philosopher's Stone
A MacGuffin Ghoul? Maybe.

Consider what we know about the Philosopher's Stone. It grants eternal life to the person who possesses it. Failed attempts to create it have resulted in the Ebony Stone and Crimson Stone. It's surprisingly well-known, defined and named for something that doesn't exist. Almost as if it's been created before, right?

Now, look at Death. He serves Dracula faithfully because he has the Crimson Stone. He was also working with Walter Bernhard up until his betrayal, which just happened to occur moments after Leon Belmont destroyed Walter's Ebony Stone. Clearly he is connected in some way to both stones.

...but... he hasn't been much of The Grim Reaper at all. His appearances have largely consisted of attacking Dracula's enemies (with no visible success) or finding a way to revive his master. With one exception, every time we have seen him kill a character, it led directly to his causing the victim's soul to be reincarnated as Dracula. And that exception is Rosa from Castlevania 64... and she winds up reincarnated as a human! It's almost like he's not ending lives at all! If anything, he's just reorganizing life!

Not to mention he may be responsible for all the Zombie Apocalypse and Demonic Invaders. Both are a result of giving life to things that previously did not possess it.

Funny, that. He has more control over life than he does over death. And his owner possesses eternal life beyond that afforded most vampires in the series.

Wasn't there a certain artifact heavily associated with granting life? And isn't it plausible that such an artifact could bestow life upon itself? And, if it decided to hide its true nature, would it not think to pose as the exact opposite of its true purpose?

Death is just a reaper from the Supernatural universe that Dracula binds to him through black magic every time he comes back to life
It would explain why Death can be killed in each game, since season 3 shows that Reapers can be killed (demons tried to kill 2 of them to break one of the 66 seals in season 3)

The Poltergeist King is Rinaldo Gandolfi
Thanks to Lament, we apparently have two origins for the Vampire Killer. One is that the Belmonts had the whip blessed by a Poltergeist King, the other in Lament is that it was an Alchemy-created Whip given more power by Sara's self-sacrifice.

What if over time, the family records got destroyed so the family had to come up with a plausible source, or perhaps they hid the truth using the Poltergeist King as a front to prevent the creation of a second Vampire Killer for some reason.

Or maybe someone in the family thought it just sounded cooler then "Some old Alchemist made this whip"
 * Variation: It was an Alchemy-created Whip, but Rinaldo returned as the Poltergeist King after he died and powered up the whip even further with his blessing.

Saint Germain is Belthasar from Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross
The Chrono continuity is just loopy enough for that to be possible.

Saint Germain is the same Saint Germain as Yarbro's
Or he's an Expy. Snappy dresser, genteel, affable, refined? And given Zead's clear dislike for him, he's not so much mortal, methinks. it's likely he's a vampire as well.

The Confessing Lady and the Wine-giving Priest Ghosts in Symphony of the Night were killed by the Murderous Priest and Psychotic Lady Ghosts Respectively
Notice for each side of the confession both, there's a friendly, and evil ghost sitting on the other side.

Kid Dracula takes place in the far future, and the title character is neither Dracula nor Alucard.
The initial evidence is sparse, but it fits together. The manual for Kid Dracula says that he is 10,009 years old. In Judgment, the Time Reaper serves Galamoth, and comes from "10,000 years hence". This is not a coincidence.

Dracula knew that 1999 would be the final battle, but did not know if he was going to win or lose. As a safety precaution, he found a woman and sired a second son, one he hoped would be more loyal than Alucard. When he was killed, the mother hid the baby, who slept for a very long time.

It is said that Kid Dracula woke from a long sleep at the beginning of the first game. Very long. More than ten thousand years, and he remained prepubescent. Galamoth had become the Dark Lord by this time, and Death served him as the Time Reaper. But Dracula's son knew his lineage, and fought the dark lord to reclaim his throne. He succeeded.

Galamoth knew that this child was Dracula's son. Thus, his backup plan was to send the Time Reaper back in time to kill Dracula and prevent him from ever being born. This caused the events of Castlevania Judgment.

When the Time Reaper was defeated, he became loyal to the new dark lord, "Kid Dracula". When Galamoth made another attempt at the throne, he helped his new liege defeat him. This explains why he appears in the Game Boy game, but not the original. And, of course, this explains all the UFOs, robots, wave beam guns, Statues of Liberty, and other things that would not have been expected in the youth of either Dracula or Alucard.

Dracula and Death are lovers, and for centuries he has been a proponent of social change.
Dracula and Death seem to have a very close relationship, as the reaper is always around when the Dark Lord and his castle reappear. With such a relationship being condemned as an abomination by the Church, this is the perfect reason for him to renounce God. The entire 'dead girlfriend' explanation is a cover-up by the Church, and the Belmonts are rampant homophobes intolerant of Dracula's very gay existence.

Which also means something must have happened in 1999, as when Dracula-reincarnation Soma enters Castlevania, Death attacks him with the swift remorselessness reserved for Belmonts, and does it again in Dawn of Sorrow, in a castle that isn't even the real thing. This must mean Dracula and Death had a nasty split in 1999, and had his resurrection privileges revoked.
 * Death is a dude? First I'd heard of it.
 * Death is a hermaphrodite. There's a reason why the Japanese keep referring to death as "shi".
 * Really lame joke aside, Death has a distinctively male voice. He is constantly referred to as male in Harmony and Portrait. Alucard calls him "old man" in Judgment. And then there's Zead. While many game manuals take care to leave out gender-specific pronouns when referring to Death, it's not hard to tell to which gender he most closely identifies.

Death is Dracula's familiar
As an alternative explanation to the closeness above, Death is not the "real" Death, just a familiar spirit who resembles a grim reaper who is bound with Dracula.

Death lost his mind after Dracula is killed in 1999
Notice Death, one of the more talkative bosses in the series, never speaks or mentions anything to Soma. I think he has become little more then another lost spirit under the sway of Chaos's power by this point.

The story of Judgement is merely a Lotus Eater Machine set up by Galamoth and the Time Reaper to trap Aeon and control time.
Which is why none of the characters look like themselves. They are actually illusions of themselves created out of Aeon's mind by the Time Reaper to give Aeon hope in finding the "Chosen one" who can destroy the time rift and save time. Thus the game takes place over a millennia or so while Aeon keeps sending the false characters into the rift to fight the Reaper, possibly while Galamoth is already ruling the world in the Kid Dracula era. Every time a character goes to fight the Reaper, Aeon is sent back to the beginning of the scenario and has to play it out again.

When Kid Dracula defeats Galamoth, Aeon is freed and time and history reasserts itself, stranding Galamoth in the SotN era where he is put down once and for all by Alucard.

Death is actually Death of Being Whipped to Death by a Belmont.
Who do you think collects all those zombies and demons? However, he has Been Whipped To Death By A Belmont so many times that I wonder how he hasn't yet been demoted to Death of Sneering at Nazi Science or something.
 * Although he does indeed collect lots of souls, and perhaps the problems he causes to his boss by being killed are the only thing that prevents him from being promoted.

The Laura in Order of Ecclesia is the same vampiric Laura that is Carmilla's Servant/Lover.

 * Does that mean Carmilla seduced a girl of Belmont blood? Clever woman.
 * Oh god TIME PARADOX! This theory is cool, but the timeline kind of knees it in the groin in this respect, a little. Plus, Carmilla's design (the mask, etc.) is a direct reference to the Carmilla of Sheridan Le Fanu's story; Laura is the narrator of that one, and Carmilla has the hots for her. Laura is not sure if want. 'Vania Laura seems to have decided 'do want', but is still fond of pretty mens. She sure smooches Richter with vigor and candor.
 * Time Travel. It's already been pointed out that the stuff in Ecclesia don't exactly make sense timeline-wise anyways. (And a great deal of other games for that matter.)

Saint German, Aeon, or perhaps some other Time Watcher, is responsible for the Stopwatch.
Lament of Innocence explained that most of the Belmont Legacy Weapons, aside from the Vampire Killer, were other weapons that Leon picked up from fallen adventurers during his travels. The only exception is the Stopwatch. Where did such a powerful tool come from? Who else but those with power over time, and who are capable of freezing time by themselves. While they don't directly interfere, it's still within character to leave the Belmonts a tool to aid them in their quest.
 * This troper wants to say it's St. Germain, since Judgment is uuuhhhh. Special. Like a short bus. And likely not going to end up core-canon since it sold so badly, and AUs the bejesus out of many characters (Trevor's eyeball and Captain-N-Simon 'tude, anyone?)

Sonia Belmont was a narcissist.
Ok, not a WMG so much as my attempt to re-canonize Legends by explaining away all the discrepancies as being due to semantics and an Unreliable Narrator. The actual timeline of the Belmont/Dracula feud goes as such:
 * In the eleventh century, the events of Lament of Innocence occur. Leon Belmont and Mathias Cronqvist are BFFs, but then Mathias's wifey croaks and he gets depressed. Leon goes to save HIS wifey from the vampire Walter Bernhard, creating the Vampire Killer whip in the process. After icing Walter, however, Mathias reveals his Xanatos Gambit . After the death of his wife, he cursed God and became a vampire, then manipulated Leon to get the Ebony Stone, making him an even more powerful vampire. Mathias and Leon messily part ways, Mathias disappearing over the horizon and Leon vowing that he and his descendants will hunt vampires forever.
 * Lisa Fahrenheit, Alucard's mum and Mathias's second wife, is convicted of witchery and burnt. Having lost another SO, Mathias takes things up a notch, declaring war on humanity and thus becoming the true Dracula, Lord of Darkness.
 * Sonia Belmont's grandpappy dies whilst fighting Dracula's minions, and the young Miss Belmont takes up her inherited Vampire Killer whip and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Lord of Darkness. She succeeds, technically becoming the first Belmont to fight and defeat Dracula, and later develops several of the vampire hunting tactics that will be passed down the subsequent generations (read: the subweapons).
 * Sonia Belmont gives birth to Trevor Belmont, whose father was a normal human totally unrelated to anything else whom Sonia met decades after the events of Legends.
 * Sonia decides to tell the story of her fight against Dracula but, being a very vain person, she ends up telling a stilted narrative starring a very Mary Sue version of herself. She de-emphasized the tale of her ancestor Leon Belmont, making it sound like she was the first Belmont to encounter Dracula (which was technically true). She also made up a very Narm â€“ey romantic subplot between her and Alucard which read like bad fanfiction (in reality, they knew each other, but while Sonia was crazy for Alucard he didn't want anything to do with her), going so far as to suggest that Alucard was actually Trevor's real father. Castlevania: Legends is this story, rather than what actually happened.
 * Sounds pretty good, and it is, after all, what a legend used to be. (If you think Sonia is something, just go back to your lit classes and pick up some greek classics! Beowulf (the character) is good for that as well.)
 * Well, that's certainly the less misogynistic path than declaring that she never existed.
 * Yes, that was my intention.
 * If I recall, the problem with Sonia's tale is that her story takes place before Lisa dies. Then again, I don't know if they ever gave a date, directly, or indirectly, for Lisa's death. (I think it may have been extrapolated from Alucard's age.) Either way, Dracula didn't declare war on humanity until Lisa died. And thus, Sonia's story didn't fit. Perhaps the story is even worse. Sonia claims to have fought Dracula and met Alucard, when the truth is she was simply hunting a lesser vampire lord, as I believe the Belmonts do when Dracula isn't around.
 * The unofficial timeline in the Castlevania wiki states that Legends takes place in 1450 and Lisa didn't die until 1470, but they estimated that assuming Lisa had a normal human lifespan she almost certainly must have died before 1450. Your idea explains it pretty well too, though. Perhaps the truth has simply been lost to the misty mists of time...
 * If Alucard is about 400 in 1797, he'd have been born in the late 1390s or early 1400s. Just sayin', not confirmin' or denyin'.
 * Sypha's ending in Judgment mentions a woman being executed as a witch in the Wallachia region a few months before Dracula's rise, justifying her decision to disguise herself. The Law of Conservation of Detail would suggest that this refers to Lisa herself. In that case, it counts as ingame support that the early events of Dracula's Curse occurred months after her death. (Of course, this is post-retcon justification, and comes from a game that deliberately dances on the line between canon and noncanon.)

Hector and Isaac are Dracula's effort at making people equivalent to the Belmonts on his side.
There's no way in hell they're mortal. In Kojima's 'Prelude to Vengeance' manga, Hector gets lanced through the lungs by Drac's talons and thrown off the keep, and lives. Isaac gets slashed across the gut and upper thighs, and lives. (In the other manga, he gets cliffed. From a considerable height. And lives.) Dracula has an intense distaste for Mortals, and judging from his attempt to jab Trevor in the eyeball he's tired of these Belmonts up in his grill already. Therefore what better way to get them OUT of your grill than setting up someone who's as capable and tough and etc. as they are, only, you know, loyal to Drac? One gets the feeling that an awful lot of work went into making those guys what they are. There's only two of them after all!
 * They use the hearts to feed their beasties too. Nice way to cut off someone's mojo supply. Trevor "WHO TOOK OUT ALL THE BLASTED CANDLES, YOU SUCK" or something.
 * Apropos of very little, this troper keeps ignoring the retcon in re: that eyeball jab - Trevor seriously has the same eye colour as Lisa, and if Dracula noticed that in battle, he'd know jolly well where the hell Alucard was sneaking off to at night, and go ballistic. Seriously, why his eye? That was CALCULATED.

Julius isn't a Belmont.
He was the one who took up the Vampire Killer in 1999, but he was from a branch family and wasn't a true descendant of the bloodline at all. Alucard had been unable to find a pureblooded Belmont descendant, but he had seen the other branch family members successfully defeat Dracula before, and his plan revolved around unrelated magical means, so he gave Julius the go-ahead. And it worked.

Unfortunately, between his destroying Dracula and succumbing partially to his use of the whip, he was left without any memory of his past. Decades later, through contact with Soma, he did not truly recover his memory, but he was able to recall the events of 1999. Thus, he jumped to the conclusion that since he was the bearer of the Vampire Killer, he must have been a Belmont. The others didn't have the heart to correct him, especially since he was in no physical condition to produce offspring and continue the bloodline. Still, with the whip in hand, he was useful to them.

His defeat at the hands of Dario was not only the result of his age, but also increased weakness from continued use of the whip.

Hammer is an absolute badass, he's just somewhat modest and silly when he's not in combat.
In Aria, you find Hammer in the library. Right after a BOSS. And he doesn't act at all like he was needed to be rescued or anything. And he sells various weapons he happens to find lying around the castle, implying that he's capable of handling the monsters. If he was an Easily Angered Shopkeeper, I'd bet he'd pull an RPG on Soma (or the Positron Rifle) if he tried any funny stuff.
 * The hair is a dead giveaway.
 * He was meant to be playable in Dawn of Sorrow's Julius mode going by some dummied dialogue (the text dump on gamefaqs has it). He may or may not have been the Grant analogue, made redundant by Alucard's bat transformation and Julius's triple jump
 * Or perhaps Julius was given the triple jump because Hammer had to be discarded?
 * As a result, this means that like Yoko is to Syphia and Julius is to Trevor, Hammer is a decendant of Grant Danasty.

Vlad Tepes, son of the Dragon, never returned from his Turkish imprisonment
Rather, he was killed there by Matthias Cronqvist, who then replaced him and lived out his life as The Impaler (which is why he was so vicious a ruler- he need the blood to live, but didn't want anyone to know he was a vampire). Matthias had decided that he needed to settle down and rule his own country, and poor Vlad was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Matthias snuck in, killed him, took his form, and returned to Walachia under his name. He then met Lisa, fell in love, and the rest is history. He kept the nickname of his alias as his title because its so much more threatening than "Matthias Cronqvist".

Taking a cue from a vampire movie they haven't ripped off yet, the Belmonts couldn't hold the whip because they were tainted.
The reason the Belmonts couldn't use the whip for a century is because a Belmont was turned while trying to rescue the beautiful daughter of an innkeeper who, it turns out, didn't want to be rescued. The Vampire Killer would have obviously smelled something wrong, but a naive young adventurer blinded by puppy-love infatuation wouldn't see a succubus under his nose if you dressed her up in a chicken suit. I hear it takes a while to purge vampirism from the blood.
 * Wait, wasn't it the brainwashing from Symphony of the Night that left the taint? It is rather shortly after that, chronologically, that we start getting other heros covering for the Belmonts....
 * Is it then? What an illogical way to taint an entire bloodline for two-hundred years. =(
 * To clarify, Soleiyu/Soleil/Slay-you was brainwashed and it had no adverse affect on the bloodline. If anything, it might be related to the curses Simon and/or Trevor inherited after beating Dracula.
 * Based on the timing, its gotta be something Richter did- he was the incumbent at the turn of the 19th century, and only 50 years or so later, Shanoa is covering for the incumbent Belmont. Furthermore, in Portrait of Ruin, the Memory of the whip's last owner is of Richter. Maybe something Richter did while brainwashed tainted him, and consequentially his testicles and any children produced, with dark thingy?
 * Think about it this way. When Soleiyu was brainwashed, Christopher went to save him with the Vampire Killer in hand. Logically, Soleiyu didn't have the whip at the time of his corruption, and thus he wasn't in a position to be rejected by it. But Richter was holding the whip, so...
 * More Than Mind Control, perhaps? They never established that he was not too obsessed with killing vampires for his own good.
 * Richter was the lord of Castlevania for an undetermined amount of time. Mind control or no, he probably had to absorb and wield some serious dark magic while there.
 * Either that or he's just that badass that he doesn't NEED dark power to control the joint - frankly if I were Slogra or Gaibon, I would not be questioning the authority of someone who very recently spanked my boss into the ground.
 * A lot of the monsters need dark magic maintenance- zombies, for instance, need regular necromancy or you run out; demonic beings need summoning to stay or even appear on this plane (Malachi/Cthulhu, for example, is so loosely tied he disappears into a portal; it can be presumed that other demonic beings are similar but better summoned). And the castle itself is dark magic- hold the title of Lord, and you'd absorb dark magic even without doing anything.

Soma Cruz is a descendant of the Harkers
This came from a game idea for "Bram Stoker's Castlevania", a Castlevania-style retelling of the original novel. Anyway, the idea was that Soma is a descendant of Johnathan and Mina Harker, from the original Dracula novel. Due to what Drac did to Mina, the bloodline is, regardless of Dracula's death at the time, still "tainted", and unlike the other Dark Lord's canditates, Soma's blood is linked to Dracula's, making him the perfect canditate for his reincarnation. And heck, it could've been planned all along as a backup plan in case things went badly for Drac in 1999. Though, it still didn't quite go to plan...

Still, it would also help in making the "exchange student" thing from the translations easier to swallow, and otherwise, the period, chronologically, between the novel and the Sorrow games, it isn't unreasonable for the descendants of the Harkers to have moved to Japan in that time.

Vlad Tepes stole Mathias' powers.
Another theory as to why Vlad goes by Vlad, and is never thought of as Mathias. In short, Vlad isn't Mathias Cronqvist. Mathias had the powers of the Crimson Stone and Ebony stone, but never really did much of anything with them. Somewhere along the way, he met and made deals with Vlad Tepes, who betrayed him and found a way to steal/claim Mathias' powers for himself. And this time, he took a more active role as the Dark Lord. The love of Lisa held him down for a bit, but then her death sent him spiraling head-on into Dark Lord territory.

The Vampire Killer Whip was warded over time to keep anybody from using it.
As a safety precaution, knowing that even Dracula can get servants of goodness working for him (Amalaric Snipers), members of the Belmont Clan, somewhat paranoid, steadily increased the wards and protections on the Vampire Killer Whip. They, rather self-assured, didn't even consider the possibility that a Belmont may end up using the whip for evil deeds. (As Richter did) Thus, the Belmonts ended up unable to use their own whip, and it took considerable scrambling to find a clan close enough to the Belmonts to be able to use it, but even then, the cost of using it would be high, all because of the wards slapped on over five-hundred years.
 * This explains nicely why, exactly, it took close to 200 years for another Belmont to be able to use it- that's how long it took for the dark taint to be gone enough to not trigger the wards.

Soma's sudden jarring shift into Dracula in Dawn of Sorrow was due to Dmitrii's Soul
Soma seems to be primarily a good person (Although his personality skirts between Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral), but as soon as he sees the visage of Mina die, he starts to turn evil immediately. Incidentally, he doesn't just become wrathful, he dives into Dracula's personality instantly. The powers of Chaos and the darkness he absorbed were strong, but it seems that his dark emotions subsided after Dmitrii left his body. Dmitrii definitely has the capability for darkness, and his soul affected Soma enough to make him enthusiastically evil.

The Dark Lord is not necessarily evil
Dracula abused his powers because of his own grudges with humanity and God, and if would willingly become the Dark Lord, rather then being manipulated into it, he could use his powers without being evil. The evil is a direct result of outside influences pushing him to be evil,. (It also follows that Chaos was evil only becuase of Dracula and not the other way around)
 * It helps that as far as we can tell, prior to Dracula's Curse, Dracula was a highly powerful God-spiting vampire lord who had the grim reaper and the forces of hell at his beck and call... and a beautiful human love interest and a son, and absolutely no qualms against humanity aside from whatever he needed to do to stay fed. The existence of Kid Dracula does nothing to hurt that interpretation.
 * It should be noted, he was still rather dickish to Leon.
 * Dracula not being entirely eeeeevil also ties into some esoteric stories about the devil being what he is by choice - he doesn't necessarily WANT humanity to fall, indeed it's quite the opposite - but damn it the little bastards just keep going DUR OKAY to every suggestion he makes--!

God is evil.
God is really evil, and Dracula was actually doing the right thing the whole time (be it misguidedly by also blaming humans). It would be amusing if the final boss in a third Sorrow game was God or another holy being, since all the others have dark-aligned final bosses. Also what kind of good God can only be good if there is a Dark Lord to offset him?
 * Law of opposites. In order for good to exist, evil has to as well. So, by comparison, a mysterious, unpossessive God can be Good simply because His plan is beneficial in the long run; and a pandering, manipulative Satan can be Evil simply because his plan is to use others and then dispose of them once their usefulness is gone.
 * That still implies God somehow NEEDS evil to be good or to exist which calls into question how good or god-like he can be if he requires evil to be that way.
 * Let's say you asked a friend to loan you a dollar. If he did, then you would consider it a good thing. Specifically, because he had the option to not give it to you. If asking for it automatically made him give it to you, then you would consider it "business as usual" and wouldn't make any moral judgments.
 * That merely implies neutrality not evil, plus having a choice to be evil and having a opposite evil being are two different things. A friend can be good without having a jerk evil friend to compare him to.
 * Only one cult leader made this claim. Thus far, there's been no proof to suggest God can only exist as long as Dracula does.

Lisa was executed because she was becoming a witch.
Consider the best ending in Simon's Quest. Simon defeats Dracula, and "his blood and sweat have penetrated the earth and will induce magic and happiness". Seeing how Dracula is the one who was buried, clearly they're referring to his blood and sweat. Now consider Lisa. Since she has a son, we can safely say that Dracula penetrated her at some point, and the transfer of sweat and/or blood is certainly a possibility. We also have evidence that her life with Dracula was one of happiness. This implies that she would have also ended up with Dracula-induced magic. The kind of magic that the townsfolk could not tolerate...
 * I, uhh... well, that is... What?
 * So what your saying is, being boned by drac makes you magic?
 * Vampires Are Sex Gods. * nods sagely*

Dracula was really on God's side the whole time.
For someone that apparently hates god, he has a rather large cathedral and occasionaly has angels running around in his castle. Or maybe...

Dracula has no control over how Castlevania manifests
Wall meat? Random useful items laying around randomly? A gothic cathedral? Angels? Alucard once said that Castlevania is a "Creature of Chaos" in reference to how the castle is never the same. I assume he wasn't simply being poetic. Chaos is. Perhaps Chaos changes the castle on it's own, and even leaves a way for the Belmonts/heros to win despite Dracula's best intentions.

The kidnapped women in Rondo/Dracula X Chronicles were supposed to be a means to resurrecting Lisa
Annette, Maria, Tera and Iris represent the four main qualities Lisa is most known for: being the most important person in someone's life, having absolute faith in humanity and the triumph of good over evil, having an unshaking faith in God, and being a practitioner of medicine. Given Dracula's OMGBFF status with Death and his penchant for mucking around with Alchemy, it's not entirely farfetched to speculate that he had one hardcore equivalent exchange sacrifice in mind.

Dracula cursed Simon to die in order that he might use Simon as his Grand Theft Me resurrection vessel
This one's a blast from the past that originated shortly after Rondo of Blood became known to a few hardcore fans willing to import it. The opening cinema of Rondo, featuring a human sacrifice as the catalyst to Dracula's resurrection, led people to speculate that the same thing was supposed to happen to Simon in Castlevania II - either the townspeople were going to all jump him at the moment he succumbed, or Dracula would just elbow his soul aside and take the body for his own when the curse came to fruition. I've seen this one passed off as canonical (people assuming fanon to be canon since it was relative BN Fs from the early days of yon internet fandom who talked about this theory a lot), but it's more than likely just speculative. Curse of Darkness's plotline lends it some plausibility, though.
 * The rather crap kids book Worlds Of Power: Simon's Quest used this idea in one form or another.
 * Huh, I (the troper who's responsible for listing this WMG) did not know that. Learn something new every day!

Eric Lecarde is the descendant of Maria and Alucard
Another old one, and not unique to NA fandom either. Japan beat us to it, but people have been speculating over here about Eric's connection to Alucard since it came to light that he wields the Alucard spear (which funnily doesn't appear in the games again until Symphony of the Night's Sega Saturn port) and that 'Alcarde spear' was blind idiot antics. The spear is the first hint as to what's up with his ancestry, and it's not the only one. He's skilled with magic. He's a lot more agile than is Jonathan. Also, he's absurdly bishounen, with long wavy blond hair and so on - the way he looks is a very possible combo of Maria and Alucard's appearances. His surname, too (whether you call him Lecarde or the Japanese Ricardo), could be a portmanteau smush of 'Alucard' and 'Renard' (and it still works if you use Learned as Maria's surname).
 * Ooh shit. That might explain too why his spear impales him when he dies in the JP and NA games - trying to prevent his latent vampirism from coming out to say yo what's up? Yeah, there's some distance between him an the source but Dracula is a jerk that way... Either that or he's trying to keep Elizabeth Bartley from snacking on him.
 * ...This here? This makes Judgment's dumb-assed toy ship really frigging twisted.
 * Also, the Japanese language has the whole L/R switching thing, and if one makes Renard into Lenard, and combines it with Alucard, one would get Lecard(e). So yeah.
 * I noticed something else. E. Lecarde. Elecard. Alucard?

The Morris Clan are the descendants of Maria and Alucard
One of few constants of the Castlevania canon is that Dracula is left-handed. In addition, those who use Dracula's powers or are related to Dracula in some way are left-handed. Alucard, Soma, and Shanoa are all left-handed, as is the possessed Richter Belmont. The only time this wasn't true was for the Game Boy games, and since Sonia's been retconned out, this leaves Christopher Belmont who has been retconned into being right-handed as of Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth. However, both John Morris and Jonathan Morris are left-handed, the latter coming out well after Dracula's left-handedness was noticed. Obviously, neither could handle the full power of the whip because they were descendants of Dracula!

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a result of coming back wrong.
Bloodlines links the Castlevania mythos to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Which is confusing, as Dracula in that story didn't have a castle full of deathtraps and armies upon armies of demons and undead at his beck and call. Nor did he have many of the powers he has in CV history. Most have assumed that only the most basic of Stoker's tale is true. At the very least, there's a Dracula, and a guy named Quincy Morris who kills him. But suppose the story is canon? How could that be?

Almost every Castlevania game has Dracula needing a boost to get resurrected. Needing the body of a Devil Forgemaster, the spirit of a werewolf, collecting his remains, etc. Even the 100 year resurrections required assistance. Castlevania Chronicles and Dracula X Chronicles show a virgin sacrifice. (Well, a sacrifice of a young girl, at least.)

So, what happens if nobody's around to perform the ceremony? Perhaps it is true that Dracula will never stay dead, but if he tries to come back on his own power, he loses a lot of it. Hence Bram Stoker's tale having a single Dracula with a few vampires and some brainwashed servants, rather than his army. Given the absence of Death, perhaps Death had to give up his power on the mortal plane in a last-ditch effort to bring Dracula Back.

Or, perhaps...

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a result of Shanoa destroying a good deal of Dracula's Power.
A big deal is made in Order Of Ecclesia that Dominus is the only thing that can destroy Dracula besides the Vampire Killer whip. (And Alucard.) It even plays out that Dracula cannot be destroyed by Shanoa herself. Dominus is also Dracula's Power directly channeled. Perhaps, because of this, the direct use of Dominus on Dracula did far more damage than just putting him down until he gets resurrected again. Given that Dominus is likely related to the Power of Dominance talked about in the Sorrow series, it seems that Dominus destroyed Dracula's ability to control all his minions, as well as Castlevania itself, leaving him with only a crumbling castle and a few human and vampire servants in Bram Stoker's tale.

Elizabeth Bartley manipulating events to start World War 1 and carting Dracula's remains around Europe wasn't just for giggles and a resurrection, it was the only way to reestablish Dracula's Power of Dominance. A single soul was good enough before, but now he needed tens of thousands to fuel his return.

The real reason Richter wasn't around to help Shanoa kill Dracula in the 1800s ) was because...
He was chasing after another Richter that stole his first name. I was always wondering why Richter couldn't help out since he was still technically alive (1800 or so is just a few years after SOTN, so...).
 * No Richter got killed by a zombie unceremoniously because he's a bloody useless character. Maria was the only one who was any good in the first place.
 * That and whoever was aware of what Barlowe was planning was too lazy to get a Belmont on the job like they did with Trevor ages ago, so yeah.

Maria, as portrayed in Judgment, is an anime character undergoing metamorphosis into realism.
Look at her portrayal in Rondo of Blood. Anime artwork, blatant Token Mini-Moe, sliding and rolling all over the place, wielding the power of The Four Gods, etc. Despite being ostensibly European, her character is ridiculously Japanese. She's largely considered a Lethal Joke Character.

Now look at her portrayal in Symphony of the Night. Mature, realistically drawn, and seems to fit well with the other characters in the Castlevania series. She's practically a different person altogether.

Her character in Judgment comes from halfway between the two games. See where this is going?

She's changing. Her Obata artwork can only be described as an anime character drawn in a realistic style. Her moves include both awe-inspiring magic and ridiculous cartoony effects. This is a difficult time for her, and as her mind is still largely anime-based, she latches onto the A-Cup Angst mentality during the process. And, in the end, it's a fitting metaphor. She's developing, not only in front, but mentally and artistically as well, until it will be impossible to tell that she was ever an anime character.

The Belmonts founded the fighting style used by Ryu and Ken.
Notice how Ricter has a lot of Street Fighter like moves in SOTN? Thats beacuse he invented them.

After SOTN, Ricter fled to Japan to get as far away from Dracula as possible. He then took a new identey and decited to train two brothers (Goken and Akuma) his fighting style. The dark side of the style(like the Rageing Demon and immorality) came from when he was brainwashed by Shaft. He was able to live long enough to have Julius as his son beacuse of the immortalty thing Akuma has. This would also explain why Akuma and Goken are so badass.


 * So Richter invented the Cross that Simon, Trevor, Leon, Christopher and (maybe) Sonia were using some time before? I'll probably give you the whip jump but really. Plus it sounds more like "Everyone with a fireball and jump punch are Ryu ripoffs". Furthermore the spin kick thing was Dummied Out. And another, where was it said that the Murder Wave makes you immortal? And I'm sure Gouken and Akuma were born in the 1940s, so unless they're as ageless and immortal as you purpoted Richy to be (Or if you misplaced the "he trained two brothers" part) then this is probably a poorly thought out WMG.
 * Err... wow dude. It was obviously a joke WMG. No need to tear it apart so viciously.

Maria is either a younger Princess Peach, or a relative of sorts
I blame the fact that she has the same colour scheme as her in Rondo of Blood. Oh hell, every little girl was doing the blonde hair and pink dress those days.
 * We can blame Toru Hagihara for merely deciding to copy said colour scheme
 * We can blame the artists for making her look like a Japanese anime loli
 * We can blame Annette for choosing the dress
 * We can blame Shaft for his dumb fetishes.

The difficulty of the Metroidvanias is proportional to the strength of the protagonists.

 * Symphony of the Night, undoubtedly the easiest game in the entire series. This is because Alucard is one of the strongest characters in the series, being Dracula's son and all.
 * Circle of the Moon was a huge jump in difficulty, because not only do we not play as Alucard, we don't even play as a Belmont! On top of that, Nathan uses a cheap imitation of the Vampire Killer. There is no substitute for the real thing, hence the game's difficulty.
 * Harmony of Dissonance has fairly average difficulty, due to Dracula's opponent being the usual adversary; a Belmont.
 * Aria of Sorrow is slightly difficult because Soma is just an Ordinary High School Student, but not as hard as it could be, due to him being Dracula's reincarnation. If you obtain the Chaos Ring and manifest Dracula's Full Power, then the Game becomes dreadfully easy since you could literally become invincible permanently.
 * Dawn of Sorrow is much easier than the GBA installments (barring maybe HoD) because Soma has gained combat experience and familiarity with his powers since Aria. Ironically, obtaining the Chaos Ring no longer gives true infinite mana and but you can still cause the game to become insanely easy anyway.
 * Portrait of Ruin is hard because the protagonist isn't a Belmont nor does he have any special powers, but isn't as hard as Circle of the Moon because he at least has the real Vampire Killer.
 * Order of Ecclesia. Shanoa has to resort to using a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to defeat Dracula, but who could blame her? This is easily the hardest Castlevania game since Circle of the Moon, after all.
 * Except that Julius is the strongest the strongest Belmont yet (even in his age), armed with the Vampire Killer, and teamed up with Alucard (and Yoko) in the DoS one and his mode are far far harder than PoR (mostly due to the lack of healing outside of checkpoints...).

The Time Reaper is the result of the romance between Susan Sto Helit and Lobsang Ludd.
Unfortunately, since both of its potential purposes were already filled by other Anthropomorphic Personifications in its universe, it had nothing to do until Galamoth came along. It's just killing time.
 * Now that, my friend, is a great Incredibly Lame Pun. Congrats.

Either Rosaly is a clone of Julia, or vice-versa.
Ruling out "they're relatives", it's the only way Julia could look exactly like Rosaly.

Lament of Innocence was the victim of a total rewrite and / or severe timeline error.
Ok, Lament is set about 400 years before Castlevania III; thing is, this creates a massive hole in the timeline. I think it's possible the intent was to set it slightly before CV3's time as the origin story of Dracula. Mathias "Cronqvist" was probably going to be Matthias Corvinus, who once held Vlad Tepes as his prisoner; this presumably would have been the useless-in-the-final-plot Joachim character, with Matthias being a hybrid of the Mathias Cronqvist and Walter Bernhard characters. This would explain the odd duplicate love-life of Dracula; presumably, "Elizabetha" and Symphony's "Lisa" were at one point supposed to be the same character, rather than him falling in love with two women called Lisa both of whom die tragically and make him turn his back on the world.
 * It was rewritten, because if the plot had originally went as planned, the designers would've had to account for Alucard.

The Legends retcon never truly took place in-universe.
Going off some other bits of info here--Trevor's eye colour is the same as Lisa's, and at some point, the only way to destroy Dracula is with his own power; the Belmonts and in-laws never had to bother with Dominus. Sonia is the first known Belmont to destroy Dracula, but due to a lack of Tepes blood, couldn't hold him down for long (though it should be noted that defeating him at all was quite a feat). Her descendants had a bit more luck.

If nothing else, this troper is curious as to why Simon (or Judgment!Simon, at least), a supposed full-blood human, would have red eyes.
 * Because Judgement's character design sucked. Also note that grey eyes aren't really that uncommon. I have grey eyes, but I'm not quarter vampire.
 * And how do we know you're not? How do we know you're not sneaking up on us right now, ready to drain our blood...?

Maria is somehow of Chinese descent.
Well then how else can she summon The Four Gods (or at least cuter versions), let alone know their names?

Dracula is a Pokemon.
Might not make much sense, allow me to explain.
 * Dracula is obviously Dark type but with a lot of Fire abilities (like how many pure Water Pokemon get Ice attacks). Dark because of all his evil balls and shit he fires (Dark Pulse?), and Fire type because of his hellfire abilities and fiery attacks (likely mini Fire Blasts). He also knows Teleport inherently. Soul Steal is kind of a mix between Giga Drain and Pursuit.
 * He also has several One-Winged Angel forms, each of these are likely split evolutions? Think about it. We have the Rondo of Blood form, we also have the Portrait of Ruin form, and the Circle of the Moon form to name a few. I theorise after being owned by the vampire killers he doesn't die or anything, he just faints, and then each time he comes back a Max Revive is used on him, but he somehow de-evolves as well (not sure how to explain this yet).
 * Dracula's evolution methods are usually getting owned enough (maybe canonically he "gains experience" and levels up, then evolves mid-battle as he's a cheat). However, in Portrait of Ruin, he only evolves with Death's power - maybe it's an alternate method of evolution, like how Death becomes a "held item" and is used up on evolution, akin to Gligar or Sneasel's evolution methods. He evolves mid-battle
 * Order of Ecclesia is one of two things - either he is holding an Everstone (and has levelled up more without evolving, hence the bat and wolf attacks, which are likely new moves not named yet), or after half of his health is depleted, he goes into daruma mode (Hihidaruma anyone), and gets insanely strong. After that, he uses his Demonic Meggiddo, which is a new Reversal type attack which is useless at high health (in this version anyway, in Portrait of Ruin version you only need to hold the Death item to do it well). Dominus is basically like Explosion (hence why it "kills" Shanoa), but Shanoa is holding the Albus item which allows her to survive at the end of the game.
 * As for the times where Dracula is "not fully revived?" Isn't it obvious - only normal Revives have been used on him, and not Max Revives. And the times where you have to get his body parts? They're alternatives, as Revives are hard to come by sometimes. As Dracula's castle can exist without him being revived, Brauner can just use the castle and his power and just be like "not using my revives on Dracula." Or Dracula was revived but Brauner handily beat him in a Pokemon battle.
 * Dracula's final defeat in 1999 is where he whited out, and so can't be revived as he is back in the Pokemon centre.
 * Soma as Dracula (in Dawn of Sorrow) is like what Staraptor is to Pidgeot - like an expy of sorts. Dracula doesn't come back as normal Dracula as he isn't available in this generation! Soma has similar powers, but his new soul powers (he even has "ability" souls) are what sets him apart competitively. This allows him to evolve and still use soul powers. Soma as a playable character is just restarting and levelling up and learning all his different moves again, and he is holding the Mina Talisman (Everstone) to stop him from evolving into Dracula (looks pretty much the same, like how many Pokemon don't really change much on first evolution, then change drastically on final evolution, which in this case is the re-use of the Rondo of Blood final form, but again, another expy).

Lords of Shadow's God Mask is bad news.
(Yes, yes, game hasn't come out yet, but...) The God Mask can resurrect people, but in all the ways you can think of that aren't good. If this holds true, then the game's good/best ending would require piecing this information together and rejecting the Mask. (Zobek is unaware of this catch, or else he wouldn't have mentioned this to Gabriel)

The Devil Mask may have similar powers, but the alternate final boss(?) it produces looks like it escaped from a different Konami series.


 * Now it has, an no it's not. It I expected a Came Back Wrong, too, but no dice.

Julius was the mightiest Belmont of all time, perhaps harnessing the power of all of the Belmonts before him.
This would explain his role in the "final" sealing of Dracula's castle in 1999. As an added bonus, it might also explain why the first phase of Death in Aria of Sorrow was just his scythe--Julius beat him so badly that even 36 years later he was having trouble manifesting on the physical plane, and thus had to possess his scythe since he couldn't properly focus his power.

As a variant of the above explanation, Soma's presence allowed or convinced Death to remanifest.
Dracula was "permanently" gone. What reason was there for him to hang around? Even when the castle returned in the solar eclipse, there was still no reason for him to make an appearance... until Dracula's reincarnation showed up. The scythe portion of the battle was meant to test him, and once Death was convinced that he was dealing with his old master, he returned in full.

Death wasn't present in Haunted Castle because he was busy doing his job.
Specifically, making sure that people who die go to the afterlife like they're supposed to. This actually works to Dracula's benefit, because Simon can't die more than a few times before his fate catches up with him.

Igor was once a time traveler, but is now Ret-Gone.
He travelled between various time periods, stealing Dr. Frankenstein's plans for the Creature and bringing it to Count Dracula during the 17th century. During the events of Castlevania Judgment, however, he was lost in the time rift and went Ret-Gone. His involvement against Simon Belmont and with Dr. Frankenstein no longer exists (as is evident by Super Castlevania IV and the Mary Shelley novel), though schematics for The Creature were recovered by an early incarnation of Dracula.

Galamoth helped the heroes in the battle of 1999.
As we all know, Galamoth wants to usurp Dracula, and of course, the Belmonts, Morrises, Belnades, and the other Dracula-fighting families wanted Dracula to stay dead permanently. Together, they went into an Enemy Mine situation and fought Dracula together to seal him away, thus fulfilling both their goals. Then one of the following things happened:

1: Galamoth decided that the heroes had outlived their usefulness and attempted to kill them, and was slain in the process

2: He chose to lay dormant until the events of Kid Dracula or another future Castlevania game

3: He is actively watching for the possible resurrection of Dracula and helping whenever he can (probably for his own reasons)

It also might explain the presence of his soul in Aria of Sorrow.

Dracula is a misandrist.
"What is a man?", he may ask. But he doesn't have nearly as much of a history of hating women. Even past his deceased romantic interests, he shows a definite bias. Why does he keep a large stock of Draculinas around, while the game where de Rais was impersonating him was the only one to feature male vampire minions? Why does he have a harem in his castle in several games? Why does he hit on Shanoa when she comes to attack him?

He's still looking for love, it seems, and the ladies have done little to anger him. It's not implausible to think that he'd be happy slaughtering all the human males and keeping the females around. This may lead to a decreased gene pool, of course, but you know him and eternal unlife.

Chaos is actually a Bydo.
A bit of Out of Genre Experience, but let's examine it. A Bydo can (theoretically) travel to any point in time before its birth in the 26th century. Let's say it decides to stop by the 11th century, where Matthias made his debut as Dracula. Using Matthias' angst as a medium, the Bydo shows itself as Death to make a deal after the death of his wife, which transfers the command of the Bydo from other times over to him. Evidence? In SOTN, Dracula's final boss seemed much more like a Xenomorph, attacking with triangular beams of light. Dracula's castle seems to be organic in some of the games (and don't get started on the paintings). Finally, Chaos' true form itself seems a bit too otherworldly. Now, why do the Bydo let the Belmonts win? They have their own battle to fight, and they're just bored.

Juste is suffering from some kind of OCD in regard to interor decorating
The reason Juste starts decorating a room in an unknown castle, while Lydie is missing and Maxim is acting strangre is because of his OCD, if he sees a tasteless room, he simply must start decorating it, and pick up oddly placed funiture. Maxim, being his best friend, knew of it, so when the castles is created from his will, the castle also create a bare room and spread funiture across the castles, in a effort to stall Juste if he should come to the castle.

That, or he isn't taking the trip serious at all.

The Belmonts were the bad guys
Dracula wanted to change the world for the better, but the Belmont Clan are a bunch of far right wing conservatives who don't like change. So they kill Dracula everytime he wants to bring up a new era of change in Europe.

The castle is literally a creature of chaos
That is, it's a living, flesh-and-blood being that just happens to look like a castle. That's why whipping the walls gives you meat; you're actually carving the flesh off of it. You're eating the fugging castle.
 * So... Does this mean we need to start taking the phrase "Wall Meat" literally?

Symphony of the Night was made to atone for the Captain N episode "Return to Castlevania"
My guess is that someone at Konami must've seen that episode of Captain N and shuddered "What did they do to Alucard?!" So he went on to suggest that Alucard be made the protagonist of Symphony of the Night and everyone else agreed. And it worked to overshadow Alucard's appearance as a punk rock teen.

God gave Mathias a second chance in the form of Soma.
I already brought this up on the page for the Sorrow series, but it really belongs here.

As we all know, Soma is the Reincarnation of Dracula. If you compare him to his previous incarnation Mathias/Dracula, it seems as if fate went out of its way to ensure that Soma didn't turn to evil as well.

Lament of Innocence is the domino that tipped over, leading to the chain reaction that gave us the current Dracula. Mathias' beloved Elisabetha dies; Mathias renounces God after years of fighting in His Name. Mathias then whips out the magnificence and plays one hell of a Batman Gambit to manipulate everyone involved in LoI. When he reveals himself as the man behind the curtain, Mathias tempts Leon to join him against God. Leon (thanks to his strong bond with Sara) refuses; Mathias sics Death on him, effictively ending his friendship with Leon and culminating in Leon's resolve to hunt Dracula for all of eternity and have his descendants take up the mantle should he fail. Later on, his Second Love Lisa (implied to be the reincarnation of Elisabetha herself) is tried for witchcraft and executed. Drac then promptly goes into full-on Rage Against the Heavens mode and never looked back.

Compare this to Soma.

The first difference would be in their appearances. Mathias is a raven-haired bishie who dresses predominantly in dark colors. Soma is a White-Haired Pretty Boy-haired bishie known for his white longcoats. In Western culture, dark colors (especially black) imply something more sinister, while white denotes virtue and purity. Symbolically, Dracula's soul has been cleansed and Soma rejects any attempts to be made into the next Dark Lord.

Also of note is that he values the bonds he's cultivated with his allies (including the descendants of the two clans that took up arms against Dracula the most as well as Dracula's prodigal son). When Mathias succumbed to his anger at God, he hastily threw away any and all of his previous relationships in his fanatical quest to spite God. Of special note is his relationship with Mina. Mina is heavily suggested to be the next incarnation of both Elisabetha and Lisa, much like Soma is Dracula. Destiny seems to be perpetually making these two attract like magnets. However, whereas it was Mathias' love for Elisabetha/Lisa that turned him evil, it was Soma's love for Mina (and vice versa) that ultimately spared him from this very same fate (as best seen in Dawn, where it is his thoughts of Mina that allow Soma to suppress and expel the numerous souls invading his body, thus preventing them from overwhelming his body and turning him into the next Dark Lord).

Just because Dracula thought that God was an omnipotent Jerkass Gods who couldn't spare his dying wife the time of day doesn't mean that God actually is. God forgives, after all. Heck, I bet that He probably would have done so much earlier had it not been for Drac's middle finger in the form of eternal life thanks to the Crimson Stone.

As such, we see Dracula getting a reprieve via a reversal of Book Ends.

Shanoa is a Belmont descendant herself.
While she may not be a direct descendant, she has enough strength in it to not get consumed by Dominus, and the villager's power further augmented this ability. This also explains how she can easily use glyphs.

Why Soma Cruz wasn't in Judgment.
Aeon, during a battle with himself, might say that two of the same person in the time rift could really mess things up. Since Soma is Dracula, and Dracula is already there, things would mess up.
 * This raises questions as to what happens with Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. One of things Soma can do? He can absorb Dracula's soul. Multiple times. And the 8-Bit Version too. Oh dear.

Lords of Shadow takes place snugly with the others
Meanwhile, some years after the charade, Leon Belmont (who may or may not be related to Gabriel) went after Walter Bernhard (who either demolished the Vampire's Castle in the mountains and had it rebuilt in the Forest of Eternal Night, assuming it was his, or just got another castle) who had kidnapped Sara Trantoul for kicks. It turns out The Belmont Clan (Leon's) deals with Dracula over time, while  Come 1999,
 * It follows that  is still alive and kicking by the time Soma turns down the position of Dark Lord, which   managed to get because   had never done anything with it. Presumably Alucard/Arikado is going to try to pressure   into finally taking up the mantle he's been refusing for the past millenium, trying to guilt him into it by saying that if he keeps shirking his responsibility like that, Soma will go the way of Mathias.

Dracula's power began to wane after the events of Symphony of the Night
In every single game in the timeline afterwards (besides the Sorrow series, since he's dead), Dracula has had trouble with his One-Winged Angel transformation. Also, he was killed in the Demon Castle Wars. The question is, was it Julius' badassery that took him down, or was Dracula finally weak enough to be killed?
 * In Order of Ecclesia, he doesn't transform at all.
 * In Castlevania Bloodlines, he needs Drolta Tzuentes to distract you while he transforms.
 * In Portrait of Ruin, he has to absorb Death's soul in order to transform.
 * At the end of Symphony of the Night we do see Dracula starting to question his purpose and existence. "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul?" He never shows this to anyone other than his own son though.

Dracula is fed up of the eternal fight.
Alternatively to the above, it might be that Dracula is simply going through the motions. After SOTN, he might have got bored and fed up of his long feud because it doesn't seem to be helping him much, constantly getting revived and beaten into the ground every time, questioning who he is. He may also show true regret and want it all to be over. The problem is people keep resurrecting him. They are often manipulated by Dracula. Maybe he's trying to revive himself so someone can kill him for real? He's just keeping up appearances, and in Ecclesia in general, he doesn't seem to take the fight with Shanoa that seriously, only not playing around when he decides to use Demonic Meggido. He may want to finally be ended so he can die happily and/or be reincarnated into a better life (read: Soma), as opposed to generally getting weaker (though he might be, if he is questioning his motives).

Failing that, he might want to only die for real in a worthy way - against his old adversary, the Belmonts, as a sort of a post-humous thank you. He's just biding time until the next Belmont comes, in an only he can kill me situation. However, Shaft's possession of Richter might have fucked up the Belmonts' ability to vanquish Dracula and resist the darkness (hence the 1999 destiny), so he fucked it all up and now Drac has to wait even longer to be redeemed. One would imagine the 1999 game, if ever made, would have a Tear Jerker ending for Dracula, regardless of how it happens.
 * Perhaps the people who try to resurrect him aren't being manipulated by Dracula himself, but his dark power. It has been said that Dracula can never truly be defeated due to the evil in the hearts of humans. Even if Dracula wanted to, he simply can't die for good. The forces of evil will find some way to bring him back, time and time again. Even Death is driven by duty to see Dracula resurrected, even if Dracula doesn't want to be. This is especially the reason Dracula is so sick of the endless cycle. He can't stop it himself.

A 3DS or Cafe game will finally show what happened in 1999
The main character will be Julius (natch), but it will be like Julius mode in DoS, a homage to Castlevania 3, and star the following characters
 * Julius: duh, uses Whips
 * Alucard: duh, uses swords
 * Charlotte: Now hates being called "old", possibly using magic to be physically young.
 * Lt. Hammer: A Generation Xerox of Hammer, finds love during the game to account for Hammer's birth in 2001, uses knifes, guns and throwing weapons, playing like Grant in the (Japanese version) of Castlevania 3. Is among the military force that make up the Zombie Soldiers, possibly sole survivor. May be a Gender Flip.

Jonathan shows up part way to deliver the Vampire Killer.

If for Cafe, Harmony of Dispair (with Hammer and Young Julius playable) will be included as multiplayer.

Julius has an sibling, who the Belmont line continues along
The reason they weren't the hero of 1999 is not that they were younger, but that they wanted a quite life as an interior decorator instead of trying to stop demons from killing them.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is orchestrated by the Time Travellers.
St. Germaine and Aeon. Okay, this is kinda obvious, but it had to be said.

The Time Travellers are trying to redeem Death, and are starting "new" fights with Dracula back in time to get at him.
Heck, St. Germaine was even trying (rather annoyingly) to talk Zead into surrendering in Curse of Darkness. The problem is, Death only has a personality when Dracula is around. (Hence his silence in the Sorrow games.) They won't let Dracula die, Time Paradox be damned, heck, even if he already reincarnates into a good guy, until Death is dealt with.

Death hates Time Masters because they keep taking his favorite spot
Even in the early games of the series, the Clock Tower was a recurring landmark, and usually That One Level at the same time. The minions Dracula placed in charge have varied from game to game, from generic bosses such as mummies and werewolves to named characters such as Grant and Annette. In fact, Death was only the boss of the clock tower twice in the early days: Dracula X and 64 (even then, only if you were Reinhardt).

Starting with Aria of Sorrow, this changed drastically. Since that game, there have only been three games with clock towers in which Death was not the boss: Dawn of Sorrow, Curse of Darkness and Judgment's story mode.

Who were the clock tower bosses in those games? Zephyr, St. Germain and Aeon. Apparently they got first pick of the spot because of their connection with time. This made Death bitter.

(In fact, consider how easily he set a trap for Germain. He knew he would go back there.)

Harmony of Despair did happen in the "real world", in the character's dreams or a dream-like world.
The events of the game are basically "characters in a book chronicling the Castlevania 2-D games suddenly come to life within the book and help/fight each other." However, the "spark" of each character's soul served as an extension.

Harmony of Despair is the Time Crash because of Soma's rejection of being the Dark Lord.
Alucard said reality would pick a different Dark Lord if it wanted one, it didn't have to someone in particular. Well, reality isn't confined by space and time, and decided that it STILL wanted Dracula; even though it couldn't touch Soma's Free Will. So it smashed all the timelines together and made the old Dracula the current Dark Lord; causality be damned. Soma dominating Dracula caused reality to try and pull candidates from even further back; "The Count" at the height of his power; and then the Demon Dragon King; Ryukotsuki.
 * Soma dominating Retro Dracula causes the alternate 3-D Game Dracula origins.

Harmony of Despair was caused by Galamoth, who wanted to take out some rivals.
This time he had Time Reaper stay behind the scenes. Not only would it Time Paradox Dracula; but it also lead to the destruction of some rival Demon Lords in Hell; Beelzebub, Legion, and Ryukotsuki.

The Castlevaina series takes place in the same 'verse as the original NES Ninja Gaiden series
It would explain the incredibly similar gameplay of the NES games.

Death is actually testing Soma.
It's been indicated that Death doesn't follow Dracula's goals, only Dracula himself. Perhaps Death, in both the Sorrow games, appeared in order to test his reincarnated master, so Soma would have the skill and power to face greater challenges ahead?

Galamoth is really Barney the Purple Dinosaur
His ambition to become the dark lord, his affiliation with space (Barney went to space once) and his sorcerous powers are all evidence for this shocking theory.

The monsters escaped after Castlevania
This explains why there are no monsters in Dracula's Castle in Simon's Quest, but there are everywhere else, they got away from the castle. Dracula's influence is needed to make monsters, but they don't die with him, if he dies, the monsters gain free will, and so, they got away, and spread around Romania, to be destroyed by Simon when he looked for Dracula's remains. Without Dracula's influence, no monsters could be created in his castle, and he was re-killed so quickly, that he had no time to make monsters, this explains why he's easy. Next, the monsters in Harmony Of Dissonance were creations of, and since Castle B is more or less a creation of his mind, he has more control over it's monsters, the Merchant is also a monster, but made with good side. In Symphony Of The Night,, monsters in Aria Of Sorrow are leftovers from the battle of 1999, and when we get a game featuring the battle, the bosses who were left over shall be Bonus Bosses. Dawn Of Sorrow has the souls from Soma released and they go to the closest to Castlevania they could find, the so-called replica.

Eric Lecarde fought Elizabeth Bartley to hold her off while John Morris went to battle Dracula.
A relatively minor theory for how the events of Castlevania Bloodlines played out. Namely that while the two fought together in chasing Bartley throughout Europe, when it came time for the final battle, Eric challenged Bartley and held her off so John could go ahead and battle Dracula. It also fits in that while John would be dedicated to Dracula's demise, being the heir of the Vampire Killer, Eric would have a bigger beef with Elizabeth for turning his girlfriend into a vampire.
 * Hey, it makes perfect sense, so I don't see why it wouldn't happen.

The playable Old Axe Armor in Portrait of Ruin is a suit of armor possessed by a perverted old man that has been symbiotically attached to a young woman who wanted to be a Hero.
It explains the reuse of Jonathan's voice and Maria's portrait. Those are just substitutes to censure what's actually being said and what the woman actually looks like. Other than that, just wanted to throw this out there as it makes sense to me.

The Castlevania is, in fact, the Scholomance.
No, not the Scholomance from Warcraft. This is the one from old European lore. The Scholomance was a super-hyper-mega-ultra-secret school where the Devil taught ten cultists at a time black magic. The price was that one of the ten would have to remain forever afterwards as a servant (whether as a professor or some lesser staff member is not mentioned). More importantly, the castle of both Walter and of Dracula are the same Scholomance. Not only does this explain how the place gets festooned with all manner of horrors as soon as it arises (the demons were there from the beginning, the witches are there for beginning lessons, etc.), it also helps explain its highly variable form without really messing up the bookshelves &c. It was varied by the students' experiments. After Julius trapped Dracula's castle inside an eclipse, demonkind simply got to work on constructing Scholomance #2, which proceeded to become With Light's main base of operations.

About Joachim Armster
So, we know from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence that Joachim Armster, the vampire who is imprisoned by Walter for attempted rebellion, was once human. So what caused his current predicament? There are two possible theories:
 * First possibility is that Joachim was like Leon, except of course, unluckier. His girlfriend was kidnapped by Walter, so he attempted to fight Walter, but lost, losing his girlfriend and his life. But for whatever reason, Walter decided to vampirize him just For the Evulz, and that's how Joachim became a vampire.
 * Second possibility is spoileriffic:

Dracula's curse is the Bubonic Plague.
I was watching a documentary, the other day and it briefly talked about the Black plague, and said it was in the 1400s. Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse,takes place in the late 1400s. It then hit me: Dracula's Curse IS the plague. Considering the fact we really don't know much about the curse since its pretty much just in the title, it could be the plague. The next chronological game, Curse of Darkness's, opening narration talks about how, even after Dracula died, his curse rages on, but this time it goes more in depth about the curse. Its plaguing the land, AND the people. Dracula's curse left the land to rot while poisoning the minds of its inhabitants, who pillaged and scourged it without remorse. Sounds like a plague doesn't it? It is also said that during Castlevania 1 right before dying Dracula, put a curse on Simon,and is said to have non-healing wounds and cursed the land just as he did in CV 3. One of the effects of this curse as shown in curse of darkness, is the dark sides of humans. The villagers "help" in Castlevania 2: Simon's quest may have been trying to genuinely help Simon but the curse made them give cryptic or pointless info. Also it is possible that Simon could of had the plague as well as the curse. This makes Simon Belmont EVEN MORE BADASS. Also even if I am mistaken about that Dracula could of caused the plague, he certainly could of benefited from it, seeing how if the world is in an very miserable state, Dracula could potential be revived earlier than 100 years.

"Death" is not the actual Grim Reaper.
"Death" is actually a Tzimisce Schlakta created by Gabriel Belmont out of the remains of the Forgotten One. Gabriel also created the Crimson Stone to bind his servant to him and any childre he would sire.

Gabriel Belmont sired Mathias Cronqvist.
While keeping watch over the remainder of his bloodline--one of whom was Leon Belmont--Gabriel sired Mathias Cronqvist into Clan Tzimisce to save him from his illness. Mathias later orchestrated the confrontation with the Malkavian Walter Bernhard in an attempt to share his power with Leon. Mathias used the power of the Crimson Stone to psychically diablerize Walter, giving him Walter's Malkavian traits.

Vlad Tepes Dracula is a thin-blood, and diablerized both Mathias Cronqvist and Gabriel Belmont.
In the early 15th century, Gabriel Belmont and his childe, Mathias Cronqvist, settled in the province of Wallachia in the guise of the wealthy Ruthven family. Gabriel took the name Tabak Ruthven, the "head" of the family, and Mathias took on the role of his "son", Lambach Ruthven. After Mathias Embraced Vlad Tepes, he discovered that Vlad was a thin-blood and abandoned him. Vlad, coveting the power of the Crimson Stone, tracked his sire down and diablerized him, gaining not only Mathias' power, but also Walter Bernhard's Malkavian abilities. He then used his new power to cripple and diablerize Gabriel so that his control over the Crimson Stone could not be disputed. Until 1999, the four personalities--Gabriel, Mathias, Walter, and Dracula--had been warring with one another. This also explains how Dracula was able to conceive a half-vampire son with Lisa, as some thin-bloods have been known to possess the ability to reproduce, whereas normal vampires cannot.

Zobek's warning of Satan's return referred to the Demon Castle War of 1999.
Gabriel Belmont had managed to claim Dracula's body as the dominant personality, and he instantly went into hiding so he would never again have to face the members of his bloodline. After Zobek sought him out, Gabriel went to prevent Satan's return. Satan managed to enter Dracula's mind and destroy the personalities of Gabriel, Walter, and Mathias so that only Dracula was left. Afterwards, Zobek sought out Julius Belmont to slay Dracula one final time and destroy the Crimson Stone.

Pumpkin is a Cloudcuckoolander.
Very plausible for his innocent devil counter part. He isn't aware that he is actually fighting very evil dark forces of nature evidenced by his jolly singing, dancing and playing about. Apparently he thinks that this whole Dracula scenario is just a game somewhat as the same as the player does. In his mind he there is no conflict going around, everyone is just simply "playing" with each other. When he is fighting(like he is in Lament of Innocence) he in reality is just playing much like Majin Buu(fat).]]


 * Alternatively he is a Psychopathic Manchild of the good kind.

Pumpkin is an important facet to the Belmont Legacy.
Explaining why he is always in the more important castlevania games involing the Belmonts(excluding fanon, cell phone manga, handheld games and comics). Even though he has only been seen in two of these games, those games are the only real important castlevania games that heavily emphasis on the Belmonts.

The "Julius"/Mr. J seen in the Sorrow games is not the real deal
He is instead another amnesiac Snake clone, who shared his ancesetor's fear of Dracula. The events gave him Julius's memmory (and possibly hunting skill). How his name starts with J, I don't know.

The Munsters is the result of a failed attempt to resurrect Dracula
It might be a stretch to include this in canon, but if the Bram Stoker novel can fit... and they more or less made it clear that "Grandpa" was supposed to be THE Dracula...

Anyway... shortly after his defeat in PoR, someone attempted to bring back Dracula, but it was simply too early. The result was a partial resurrection of a kindly old man with only a small degree of powers and limited vampirism. While we know Dracula had one son, it's quite possible he'd sired other children over the years, especially a daughter who may have been raised outside of Dracula's evil, but knew her lineage. With a damaged memory, Dracula sought out Lilian, who had married Herman Munster(himself being Dr. Frankenstein's monster). With practically no memories and no need to drink blood, with only limited ability to change form and no aversion to sunlight, he was seen mostly as harmless, and Death and the others left him alone while they worked on the means to complete the process. Meanwhile, he took up the first name "Sam" and took up odd science as a hobby.

Until Alucard located him. Maybe he wanted to protect his now sane father, or maybe he wanted to destroy Dracula while he was weak. Either way, Death knew this would be bad... and sent the entire Munster family forward in time by roughly 20 years(the time warp that led to the 1980s series Munsters Today). Alucard lost track of Dracula and Death had 20 years free to work on the process without having to worry about Dracula being killed or turned forever from evil. Eventually, Death succeeded in finding a means to restore Dracula's powers, memories and evil nature, which led to the events of 1999.

As to what happened to the family... perhaps they were wiped out when Death came calling, or perhaps they simply found "Grandpa" missing one day. They may still be around, perhaps unaware that Soma Cruz is Lilian's father resurrected and Alucard sees no reason to tell them. Or maybe they do know, but see no need to meet with him as he'd have no memories of them.

Of course, that's one workable theory... another is that, during one period of resurrection, a second Dracula was created out of "junk" material, which was left to wander around. He THINKS he's Dracula but has no idea about the Belmonts or anything else, in which case he's not even the real Dracula, but a leftover copy made of qualities that Dracula wasn't gifted upon rebirth(and also avoids any conflict with anything that could explain the events of 199 or what led to them, should they ever be revealed). Either WMG could explain why Grandpa, who was supposedly Dracula, didn't display most of the usual vampire traits or even any of the same behavior as any of the Castlevania versions, or even the Bram Stoker or Bela Lugosi versions.