Nocturne Season 2 makes the series’ biggest mystery even more confusing

“Castlevania: Nocturne” Season 2 opens up many interesting topics for a possible third season and concludes most of the major storylines from the first season. At the same time, the series has not yet fully solved one of its biggest mysteries, which has to do with the new breed of night creatures created by Abbott Emmanuel (Richard Dormer).

In the original Castlevania series, night creatures are created by master devilsmiths, human sorcerers who use a specific type of dark magic to channel souls from hell into dead bodies, transforming them into monstrous creatures. These master blacksmiths each channel their magic through a specific, unique tool, and the monsters they create are loyal to them. In most cases, the souls channeled into the night creatures do not appear to be the same ones that housed the bodies in life, but there are apparently some exceptions to this rule. In general, however, creatures of the night prove to be quite thoughtless.

But that’s all changing the first season of the sequel series “Castlevania: Nocturne”. Emmanuel uses a different method to create them using a massive machine of arcane power that works much faster than the methods shown in the original series. The results also vary, as many of the subsequent night creatures seem to retain both their humanity and their free will to some degree. This starts with Edouard (Sydney James Harcourt) and in Season 2 many other creatures of the night show the same strange humanity. While the second season doesn’t explain this, it does reveal a few more clues that add to the mystery. Let’s get into it.

The simplest explanation for Emmanuel’s strange night creature phenomenon is simply that his alternative blacksmith method results in different types of creatures. In Season 2, most of the French Revolutionary Army soldiers he turns into monsters retain a degree of autonomy and a connection to their former lives, allowing Eduoard to turn them against Erzsebet Báthory (Franka Potente) at the end of the season. The machine even transforms Drolta Tzuentes (Elarica Johnson) into a vampire/night creature hybrid after she is killed by Alucard, allowing her to venture into the daylight and greatly increasing her power, seemingly without losing any part of her former identity .

In Season 1, we see that Emmanuel uses some kind of Enochian grimoire to operate his dark machine, and after his death in Season 2, Olrox (Zahn McClarnon) looks into it. While examining the book, he encounters what he calls a dark spirit “Old Man Coyote” or “Mephistopheles”. This being’s true identity and purpose remain a mystery, but it is clear that he manipulated Emmanuel, possibly even telling him how to build the machine. This could mean that Emmanuel did not use traditional blacksmith magic at all, which could explain the anomalies in his night creatures. And since it was actually the machine and its incantations that created the creatures, rather than Emmanuel himself, it stands to reason that they wouldn’t be quite as loyal.

Of course, without knowing Old Man Coyote’s true motives, it’s hard to say anything for sure. With any luck, we’ll get another season of Castlevania: Nocturne to further get to the bottom of the mystery.

While it would be nice to have a little more clarity on how the Blacksmith’s magic works in “Castlevania,” the mystery is anything but a plot hole. The franchise has always adopted a fairly open interpretation of its supernatural stories, a far cry from the “hard magic” systems of many fantasy stories. Annette (Thuso Mbedu) uses a very different type of magic than the speaker powers of Richter (Edward Bluemel) and Juste (Iain Glen), all of which are different from what the master blacksmiths do. The original series revealed that there are many worlds in the Castlevania universe, and that means a truly limitless variety of witchcraft and wizardry.

“Nocturne” did much to expand the world of “Castlevania” into new arenas and mythologies that connect it in fascinating ways to the more traditional vampire story of video games. With any luck, Netflix will see fit to renew the series for another season, which could shed some more light on how all of these different supernatural pieces fit together.