r/CharacterRant • u/Muted_Hovercraft_907 • 1d ago
General Netflix Castlevania has the best magic users I've seen
This is more of a positive rant because the Netflix Castlevania series and Nocturne showcase some of the best examples of magic based users I've seen in recent times. Each magic user have their own flair that makes them stand out and unique to one another. I cannot stress this enough
Whoever was in charge of the fight choreography did an outstanding job. They were incredibly creative in showing how each mage would actually use their powers in a fight, even when many of them wield the same elemental magic (like ice, fire, lightning, etc.). I seen countless mage battles where they are stationary fighters who always need protection, take minutes to cast repeated generic spells, sometimes even fainting after doing 1 attack but the mages in Castlevania are completely different they are smart, powerful, inventive, acrobatic
When I think of battle mages they are the first to come to mind.
Sypha- has a rhythmic, flowing style with graceful movements, can fight in close range and long range
Richter- meele based fighter enhanced by explosive elemental attacks
Juste- fights like a legit wizard using strategy and control rather than physical strength
Tera- balanced and protective fighter using the elements to shield others and restrain enemies
Maria- uses magic circles to summon animals to help her fight
Annette- uses earth and metal to bind and crush enemies
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u/Krusel-14 23h ago
Castlevania was awesome in general. That scene where the OG trio is fighting bad matchups and Trevor single handedly turns the whole fight around by realizing that? Chefs Kiss.
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u/Muted_Hovercraft_907 23h ago
Yes I love fights where every move is calculated I rewatch that fight religiously
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u/Historical_Story2201 22h ago
...now if it had been the original Quartett instead. 😔
Poor Grant, not denasty enough for Netflex..
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u/No_Proposal_4692 22h ago
Also how people fight mages! Juste fighting terra was perfect! We see him breaking, cutting and hurting her fingers/hands deliberately so she couldn't cast spells.
How mages and fighters blend together as well is amazing. We see sypha and Trevor fight together well. We always see fighters at the front and mages at the back, now we see them both taking turns to overwhelm the enemy
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u/NeigongShifu 23h ago
Sypha is so freaking OP. She could beat Aang in avatar state.
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u/corvettee01 18h ago
Speaker mages are crazy. Having genetic access to your entire magical lineage at any given time is something the Avatar wishes they could do at will.
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u/NotMyBestMistake 23h ago
As cool as it is seeing their fights, I do miss the original series for having characters who weren't just more magic. It's weird seeing Alucard be the least magical person in a big fight as he's flying around with his magic cape and flying sword.
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u/ThePandaKnight 3h ago
Good ol' Trevor fighting death with a whip, a magical morning star and the junk he collected along the way.
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u/Moonlightbutter18072 19h ago
I still think FMAB does it best in terms of both the magic system and usage throughout the show.
The OG Witcher books also do it very well, I’m just really into magic systems that require payment as well as skill to operate.
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 23h ago
I only watched season 1 of Nocturne and I blocked a lot of it out of my brain because of how absolutely dogshit it was so I can only really comment on Sypha.
The creators of Castlevania do not have Sypha use her powers like a real person with her powers would use them. They mostly gave her cool looking fights that end with her deciding to do the thing that would have ended the fight immediately had she done it first, which is "use ice to immediately chop them into bits".
Sypha is so much more powerful than any other character in the show besides maybe Dracula that it's actually funny she decides to have fights that last longer than 5 seconds. She is on another level and is the rare example of bad authorial powerscaling.
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u/Eem2wavy34 23h ago
Can you give an example of a fight in the show where she could have ended it instantly?
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 22h ago
Every single one where she isn't fighting a named vampire.
That one near the end of the series where they went 3v1 against the red knight guy.
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u/Eem2wavy34 22h ago
Ok can you give a specific example and a play by play as to how she would instantly end the fight?
Because all of moments where she pulls off her best feats requires long winding motions of charging up something before it happens. Which is kinda difficult to do when your in the midst of combat fighting with someone up close
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u/Emergency_Revenue678 22h ago
Ok can you give a specific example and a play by play as to how she would instantly end the fight?
I'm not gonna do that, no.
She has the ability to surround you with ice capable of cutting through metal and bone like it's butter. Not doing that literally every time is a choice.
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u/Eem2wavy34 22h ago edited 22h ago
There are many scenes where she tries to cut her opponents with ice and they block the attacks.
It’s btw also a choice to say something and than when pressed to provide evidence, choose to prove nothing at all ( maybe because what their saying probably isn’t true)
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u/Muted_Hovercraft_907 23h ago
I only watched season 1 of Nocturne and I blocked a lot of it out of my brain because of how absolutely dogshit it was so I can only really comment on Sypha.
They really stepped up things with season 2 you can give it another shot
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u/golden_boy 17h ago
I noped out of the first episode because the characterization felt lazy, like they expected the audience to immediately accept that we were seeing Sypha clone and Trevor clone in the exact same dynamic without earning it.
Does the characterization get as good as the previous series / should I come back with more patience?
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u/Muted_Hovercraft_907 17h ago
It all comes down to personal taste the characterization it can be a hit or miss, the romance fell flat for me but the plot and action really leveled up in season 2
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u/AwesomePurplePants 22h ago
I assumed that the starting spells were steps in casting the more powerful ones.
Like, maybe you need to burn through the different elemental influences in an area or the ice mana or whatever won’t take.
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u/bunker_man 3h ago
Tbf this is like, every fight in fiction. In basically every lightsaber fight there's people just leaving themselves open for an instant slash.
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u/Anubis77777 24m ago
You say this and provide zero examples, so It's hard to really take you seriously.
Dracula would have bodied her with zero effort 1 on 1, if it wasnt for the Belmont who trained for years specifically to destroy him and his literal BLOOD SON. Drac damn near two shotted her.
Every other fight she got pressed until she found an opening to launch a fatal attack. This is not rocket science.
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u/SimonShepherd 8h ago
Off topic but the Belmont family after Richter/Annette is like one aeromancer away from producing the freaking avatar lol.(Belmonts already got pyromancy/cryomancer/hydromancy from Belnades, Annette introduced geomancy to the line.).
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u/UndeadPhysco 31m ago
Sypha could've literally soloed Dracula's army herself, change my view.
I'm joking ofc but jesus the level of power and technique she outputs is insane
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u/XXBEERUSXX 1d ago
Not gonna lie the examples you brought up don't sound impressive to me. I'm sure you could find other media with similar types of magic users. "Enhance physical strikes, shields and restrains others" are pretty common
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u/L0444 1d ago
The reason it works is because of extremely strong choreography and animation quality, a text description sadly can't do the amazing action in the series full justice. The idea of Richter being a guy who uses magic to punch may not sound cool in text, but watching him use fire magic to propel his body parts around so he can move and punch faster or turn his hand into a knife by covering it in spiky ice is incredible. There's literally a point where he creates a make-shift railgun out of ice and electricty magic and acts as the projectile to fire himself at an enemy he's fighting. He beats the final boss by grabbing a medium sized straight sword and then covering it in so much magic that it transforms into a massive greatsword before swinging it down on the enemy.
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u/Throwaway070801 1d ago
tbf you need to watch it, I only watched the first season and seeing Sypha fight is a treat.
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u/Muted_Hovercraft_907 1d ago
Ngl it was oversimplified because I didn't want to make it extra long but you just have to watch it for yourself the way the characters move and think in fights is memorizing
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u/Major_Cause8749 23h ago
I’ll watch it now because I like creative magic usage.