Alright Ive Thought About It A Bit, Lets Rant About Just How Horrifying The Curse Simon Was Afflicted

Alright I’ve thought about it a bit, let’s rant about just how horrifying the curse Simon was afflicted with would be! Consider this like a part one of sorts for Simon’s Quest analysis stuff cause I could talk about this one game for hours on end—

I’m gonna put a cut here because warning ⚠️ descriptions of decay, gorey stuff, disease, and some pretty bad mental effects. Stay safe guys, don’t read further if you can’t handle those topics!

I’ve seen multiple different descriptions of it from different media and manuals, but, just from this little line alone, this is already a pretty awful fate for the guy. High emphasis on the word decay. That in itself can imply a lot of different things, sometimes all at once. And keep in mind too, he’s had this over the course of 7 years. Simon is probably already an absolute wreck from this wayyyyy before the game even starts.

First of all, getting hit on the back is a bad spot for any kind of infection or spreading disease (closest irl counterpart). That’s awfully close to a lot of vital things you don’t want something spreading to including the spine, lungs, heart, etc etc. Especially for deeper cuts because we’re talking Dracula level injury here, not like a paper cut or something. Hell, too deep of a hit on the back might cause some nerve damage, not to the extent of paralysis in his case, but general chronic pain from a wound that won’t heal properly is uhhh… not great. :( I’ve also seen some media say that the curse causes wounds to not heal, bleeding, the American manual even mentions it effecting the soul, awful stuff. I generally like to think “Bloody Tears” is referring to Simon tbh.

Another thing, with afflictions that cause decay generally the smaller appendages start getting hit hard with it first. It’s the same way for a lot of other conditions; fingers, toes, earlobes, anything protruding like that because the body considers them lowest priority in a survival situation like that and it wouldn’t kill you to lose them. Necrosis especially has things start turning ruddy colors, blacken, and start forming holes in the layers of skin (@ @ ;). Obviously this alone is excruciating. Poor dude has to walk for days on end like that…

And slowly deteriorating could also imply some form of wasting. Fats usually go first, then muscle, which is also very not good when you’ve gotta beat the clock to survive. Scary thing is that the brain is like 60% fats and not immune to any of this whoops—

Something I don’t really see anyone consider very often when talking about the curse (not that I’ve seen many people talk about this 💀) is how absolutely mentally fucked up Simon would be from it. Just the terror of knowing you’re slowly rotting to death would be enough to drive most people into some kind of despair or panic, but seeing and feeling all the gruesome details of it is even worse. Being in constant pain and stress isn’t good for anyone, especially someone who is already weakened from illness. But the sheer mental deterioration this guy would be having from the decay itself oh my god (0_o ). Looking up widespread brain shrinkage like that and uh some of the early signs are already stuff like seizures and extreme headaches. Add the fact that he doesn’t really sleep much for upwards of 7 days and it’d be an absolute miracle if this guy wasn’t hallucinating and/or completely hysterical by this point among other things. I mean, no wonder so much of this game is running around lost and confused, not only are people lying to his face, Simon is probably just barely keeping his shit together the whole time.

So just imagine for a second all of these things combined. No wonder people were terrified of him, he probably genuinely looked like a corpse. Eeeee yikes yikes ouch, poor guy :’’’’’(.

Anyway, Konami where is my horror focused Simon’s Quest remake you cowards—

ok so. sara trantoul as a character has SOOOOO little lines and im attempting to extract and reconstruct her personality around it, and in attempting to study her to better understand her as a character, this is what ive so far found.

sara has exactly 3 scenes. one where she awakens to leon, and says maybe one thing to him, one where she’s electrocuted by rinaldo’s barrier, and of course, the one where she martyrs herself to create the vampire killer. we also have some very minor clues about her, such as her art, the music that plays during her last scene, the dramaticized scene with the succubus (iirc in sotn the succubus mentions being able to see into alucards mind enough to immitate lisa), and the emotions leon displays towards her, and towards her kidnapping / the situation in the first place. i don’t have the information booklet that comes w the game disk (anymore 😭) nor have i read the manga adaptation. i feel like i remember there also being a manga that follows, the one where leon meets trefor llewelen and liza marquis, but i dont know anything about it.

as a sidebar, if anyone has access to any of those things please for the love of g-d PLEASE let me see them

ill get into the more minor tidbits first. we have the succubus scene, which IS dramaticized, but its meant to at least somewhat believeably be sara. the only thing of note i really noticed here was that she says “i cant believe youre safe”, which speaks to her thinking of leons safety before her own, and thus putting him before herself. theres the music thats played when shes killed, which is meant to be very tragic and sad, and is very delicate, with harp and flute. which leads into a classical piano solo. these are often used to symbolize beauty and innocence in music. however, to me, since this scene and the game is from leons pov, it feels more like its how leon views sara, and how he views her death. (rear garden is a beautiful piece btw. go listen to it.) she also has her bio, which mentions she is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and that despite being rich she will be the first to help anyone who needs it.

her first two scenes tell us effectively nothing about sara, as she does very little actual speaking in them.

in the last of sara’s exactly 3 scenes however, the one where shes basically sacrificed/martyred, it opens with leon & rinaldo finding out she has been eavesdropping on their conversation regarding her becoming a vampire. immediately this tells us two things—one, she is curious by nature, and two, more importantly, she is absolutely fed up with being kept in the dark regarding her situation & her fate, as no one will tell her whats going on really. shes having to piece it together from what little information she can glean, and having things just happen to her outside of her own control, and others basically making decisions for her, which walter did by kidnapping and eventually turning her, and, at the time of this conversation, leon is actively doing right now. (and, which, she never finds out, but which mathias effectively also does by orchestrating all of this) she is being used as a pawn in everyone elses games, and shes tired of this. she feels helpless, and she does not like it!!!

the next scene, the actual scene itself that i referenced, she tells leon to “stay away”, which speaks to her desperately trying to take control of the situation and of her own fate, trying to protect leon, that she views vampires as inherently dangerous and by extension, views herself as dangerous, and, correlated to her trying to protect leon, it speaks to her first instinct be to protect and/or help others before taking her own needs into account. however, she is able to stand up for her own desires if they directly conflict with someone else’s, even leons, as she begs him to kill her, and he refuses initially, still in denial and shock and convinced he can save her, and that theyll make it out of this, and everything will return to normal. sara knows this wont happen, explaining that it is already too late for her, which tells us she is not in denial about her own impending death. it doesnt necessarily mean shes fully accepted it—thats unlikely, due to the amount of trauma shes undergoing in such a short time. to me it, along with her first action of threatening to stab herself if leon approached, reads more to imply that when sara is faced with an upsetting and traumatic situation, her brain shifts into problem-solving mode, and surpresses her emotions until the situation is dealth with. she wouldnt be able to relax, grieve, really let herself feel any emotions until afterward, because the stress of the situation being ongoing forces her to prioritize making it through this situation before anything else.

she seems to describe the situation to leon, in presumably an attempt to make him understand the situation as it actually is and convince him to agree with her. again, trying to Fix the situation. part of the reason she has accepted death as the best option, too, is that she mentions that “if [her] soul can save others, then [she] wont die in vain”. this, too, speaks to her tendency towards putting others first even before her own life.

more than anything though, the way she describes it also reads to me as fear, which is natural. it partially implies that part of why shes not in denial about her death is that shes MORE scared of what she could become if she ISNT killed now, ESPECIALLY with how vampirism is treated/referred to in game, with the tale of rinaldo’s daughter justine completely changing, personality wise, and slaughtering the rest of her family, describing her basically as becoming a soulless monster.

sara tends to want to help people as much as she can, to the detriment of yourself. no matter how you interpret vampirism, your very survival FORCES you to place your own needs above others in a way that often endangers others. and the way vampirism is described IN GAME, its likely she believes that if the turn is completed, the vampire she will become will not only WANT to do that, but actively ENJOY it.

it is antithetical to her view of herself and her values, and THATS why she fears it so much. its also what i refer to by her putting her needs first. shed rather die as she is than live as an inverted version of herself.

when leon continues to refuse, she basically tries to manipulate/guilt trip him into agreeing, but this seems to be a last resort. but it IS a resort, which is also worth noting to her character. it implies that if she absolutely, DESPERATELY wants something, she will manipulate to get it, but ONLY as a last resort.

which draws a very interesting parallel to mathias, to me.

she also invokes this as an act of agency on her part, basically asking leon to honor her wishes instead of, like everyone else, making those decisions for her.

the last thing she says in that vein is her offering leon reassurance , which ALSO speaks to her tendency to put others before herself.

then of course we get the scene with the creation of the whip. the way rinaldo describes it in the ritual implies its SARAS rage and hatred which gives the whip its power, not leons (a mistake i made at first), and that vampires inherently carry a sort of hatred within their soul, but we dont directly see this with sara. she doesnt seem to be filled with hatred. in addition, she never completes the transformation into a vampire in canon, so she wouldnt be filled with hatred JUST by virtue of being in the process of turning into a vampire. however, i think this brings an opportunity for an interesting interpretation. she IS angry. she IS full of rage. but its nothing inherent to vampirism; shes angry she was put into a situation outside of her control, shes angry she was turned, shes angry her life had to be taken from her, shes angry at walter for all of this. and i think we dont really see this for some reason or another (my personal headcanon is that she doesnt really Allow herself to feel rage, so she surpresses it, which is why it doesnt INHERENTLY read that way when shes talking) but the thing that gives the whip its power is 1) the vampirism itself, the power of the demonic nature of her soul (vampires ARE a type of demon in the cv universe), and 2) the rage she feels towards walter, and towards vampires in general, for taking her life from her, which, now that shes in the whip, with rage being what powers it, she is basically stripped away to ONLY rage

which, i think is a very interesting metaphor to mathias and leon themselves, and how the story leaves them.

sara’s last words are “thank you, leon.” she finally feels like she can rest, like she was able to help and more than that, that her wishes were respected. it is her only true act of agency within the series.

theres of course a conversation to be had about how the writers’ misogyny played into both her characterization and lack thereof, her death and how it impacts the narrative, but thats for another time. this is what i have based on what we get in the games

BONUS: since i am an enjoyer of the victorian flower language as well as modern flower meanings, the choice of flowers in the wreath in her full body picture likely means little, but i’m still going to analyze it.

i can see 3 different flowers here: red anemone, white daisies, and bluestars

red anemone, the most prominent flowers here, and they represent death or forsaken/lost love. in christianity, they are used to represent the blood jesus shed during the crucifixion. which lines up with sara’s role as the “necessary” sacrifice, the martyr, and kind of feeds into leon’s superiority complexes in an interesting way imo.

the white daisies represent innocence and loyalty, purity and joy.

these first two line up very well with the narrative. the death of joy, of purity. a lament of innocence of sorts.

the bluestar is interesting. it can represent hope, and strength and determination, and reaching for the seemingly impossible. this is VERY interesting in the context of the narrative, as the task of defeating walter seems an impossible task, as no one has survived him before, and leon could not even land a hit on him before completeing the whip, but theres also hope now that the whip has been completed, the one thing that can defeat him, which was only possible because of sara, and with it, the determination and strength to see it to the end.

there appears to also be olive branches amongst the leaves, at least as near as i (not a botanist) can identify, which is interesting; olive branches are often associated with doves—which sara embodies very well. the bringing of an olive branch is meant to symbolize peace and hope—which is… FASCINATING to me, as she had hoped her death would prevent others from having the same fate befall them, but was consumed by rage after becoming one with the whip, the very rage which seems to perpetuate a lot of the conflict within the series. its also interesting to me bc walter returned sara to leon in a way that could be viewed as a corruption of the concept of extending an olive branch.

Strange question, but would you alright with responding to this with your separated username? Im dyslexic and have a very hard understanding what it says ^^"

Sure no problem!!! :D I’m kinda dyslexic too so I understand, I’m gonna put it in bold too cause that helps me sometimes if that’s alright d(^^ ).

Chibi Short Death

Hehehehehehe, very very recent artwork this time >:3c. I’ve been doodling some concepts for a game lately and trying to figure out RPG Maker 2003. Hopefully it goes well and I actually ever finish it oof, but here’s the main silly goober character. His name is Miran. :3

Awkward vignette on these cause Instagram and bad lighting lol.

I have a Castlevania OC >:3c. He and his story are still very work in progress stuff, but he’s got some rough concept doodles! And when I say rough I mean ROUGH cause one of his arms I erased so many times some of the layers of the paper were tearing so I had to just leave it as is and it looks a little short whoops— but yeah

His name is William “Billy” Danasty :3. I think I’m gonna have his story be set sometime around the height of the Satanic Panic with music and stuff, he’s kinda a bit of a metalhead. He seems all tough and scary, carries a switchblade at all times, and keeps everyone at a distance, but it’s not because he’s mean, he’s just afraid of people. He does make some friends eventually, but I don’t have drawings of them yet. I need to make a nice full color concept page for him someday hehehe.

Also, NES Castlevania style sprites are fun to make!!! :D

I keep seeing posts with people talking super positively about the Belmonts and whatever and getting excited to rant about character designs and stories and Simon in particular, but then I scroll down and see the tags and am reminded against my will that Nocturne exists and that’s what they’re talking about.