Castlevania Season 3 Ending, Explained

Adapted from a video game of the same name by Konami, ‘Castlevania’ did meet a whole lot of skepticism when it was first announced, and rightfully so. However, soon after the release of its first season, the anime-styled animated series received worldwide acclaim and was instantly green flagged for a whole new season. The second season further cemented its hold as one of the best gaming adaptations out there, but if you think season 2 was great, wait till you see the third one.

The third season follows a very complex and, at times, convoluted storyline that only makes sense somewhere near its conclusive moments. So further down in this article, we’ll be discussing all the major plot points of the series and along with that, we’ll also explain how all of them lead to its grim ending. SPOILERS AHEAD!

Why Did Alucard Kill Zumi and Takka?

From the very beginning of the series, Alucard seems to be lonely after Trevor and Sypha’s departure. Instead of putting all of his resources to good use, he wraps his drunk around the castle and even imagines having conversations with Trevor and Sypha. But just when he’s about to lose his mind, two vampire-hunters from Japan, Zumi and Takka, approach him and ask for his help. Unlike his father, being the kind soul that he is, he takes them in and teaches them everything he can. The two Japanese hunters share their history and after hearing it, Alucard beings to deeply empathize with them while they help him beat his loneliness.

But somewhere along the way, Zumi and Takka’s motives become clearer as they try to force Alucard to reveal all of his secrets to them. While Alucard stays truthful and loyal to them throughout, they start suspecting that he’ll betray them. Their bond with Alucard continues to grow but the betrayals of their past get the best of them and they make the grave mistake of confronting him. They lure him into bed with them and then attempt to kill him. He still empathizes with them and tries to make them understand that he has always been honest with them. But their greed for learning more about his secrets and their traumatizing past forces them to do what they’re doing. In the end, just to save his own life, Alucard uses his magic to slash their throats with a sword.

What Does Carmilla Want From Hector?

In the previous season, Carmilla had tricked Hector into betraying Dracula. In season 3, she takes him to her own Castle where Lenore, Morana, and Striga await them. Hector is held captive in the castle, and Carmilla intends to use his forgemaster skills to create her own army. To convince him to do so, Lenore is hired. Throughout the runtime of the series, Lenore tries her best to befriend him and then even seduces him. At one point, even as a viewer, you’re fooled into believing that she has no ulterior motives and has actually started admiring him.

She convinces him that they’ll run away from the castle and start a new life together. With this, just when they’re having sex, she slips a magical ring on his finger that makes him her slave. Lenore later hands over rings similar to those of Carmilla, Morana, and Striga, who can use the rings to control Hector. By doing this, they can use his forgemaster skills to revive a whole army of demons, invade an entire human civilization, and replenish the human population for their lust of blood.

Isaac and his Dwindling Hope in Humanity

In the previous season, Isaac is spared by Dracula and thrown out into a distant desert through a portal. Being a believer of god before this, Isaac now begins to lose all hope in humanity. With revenge on his mind, he intends to travel all the way to the Styria fortress just to kill Hector. Along the way, he meets several humans who, despite his kindness, act extremely rude and force him to unleash his own monsters from hell on them. He is eventually able to find a mirror that’s big enough to take him and his enormous army of monsters to Styria.

The Occultic Practises of the Priory, Explained

The main storyline of the third season revolves around Sypha and Trevor. Starting off their journey as a romantic getaway, the two of them slay monsters and have the time of their lives. They later end up in the mysterious town of Lindenfeld, where a priory full of monks indulges in strange occultic practices. Their rejection of Christianity and heavy devotion towards Dracula concerns people but most just assume that they are insane. They also run into the town’s leader, “The Judge,” and Saint Germain, who investigates the activities of the monks but seems to have some personal reasons for unraveling the secrets of the monks.

Throughout the series, a symbol starts emerging all across the town. It is later revealed that this scythe-shaped symbol, better known as “Saturn’s Symbol,’ represents time and harvest. The monks make this symbol on almost every house of the town and seem to have some sinister motives. Another symbol that is found all over the walls of their seemingly “satanic ” church is the alchemical symbol of sulfur, which represents hell. During his investigation of the church, Saint Germain discovers several cues that hint that monks are trying to build a portal to hell. The first cue turns out to be the inverted cross at the church. The monks claim that the cross was inverted when the “night creatures” first landed there.

Saint Germain also finds an old book in the church in which the pages providing instructions on creating portals to hell have been ripped off. He later makes his way to the basement of the church and finds one of the demonic “night creatures” hung in a crucifixion position which exactly coincides with the inverted cross right above it. This confirms that by using one of these demons from hell, the monks intend to create a portal to hell and revive Dracula.

Saint Germain’s Dream, Explained

During his investigations, Saint Germain keeps talking about an Infinite Corridor through which the monks are trying to create a portal to hell. He claims that the infinite corridor provides a pathway to several different worlds and shows a keen interest in using it for his own benefit. In this one scene, he gets a weird trippy dream where he finds himself in one of those corridors. He dreams of several portals that give him a glimpse of many different worlds. Most of the visuals that are presented in this sequence don’t hold any deep symbolism and only represent several different parallel worlds.

In the first visual, Germain finds himself in a futuristic world where only giant mecha robots exist. This probably represents a world that is far more developed than ours. He then gets a glimpse of other portals where he finds other parallel civilizations existing in different worlds. The last portal shows somewhat of a spiraling library where a dark female figure tries to hold on to his hand.

This library then turns into a tesseract and before he can grab the girl’s hand, he snaps out of his dream. The third season does not explain much about this but it becomes pretty obvious that Germain had probably lost someone in those portals a long time ago and that’s the reason why he was desperately seeking them. The dream sequence probably represents the real-life event in which he ended up losing his loved one into the depths of the infinite corridor.

The Ending: Is Dracula Alive?

In the final few episodes of Season 3, the leader of the priory draws the occultic pentagram on the body of the “night creature.” Right in front of the creature, there’s also another symbol that seems to be a combination of both the Saturn symbol and the symbol of hell. With this, all the houses of the town mysterious blow up in flames and emit a fire that goes soaring up in the sky. All of this fire then gets directed to the church and forms a portal. This explains why the monks were drawing those symbols in the first place.

The Saturn symbol was being drawn on homes as it makes the people “harvest” for the creature. The creature derives all of his energy from the dead souls of the burnt people and uses it to create the portal. The symbol in the basement of the church was a combination of the two as it represents how both are required to create a portal to hell. As the portal opens up, several demonic creatures emerge out of it and Sypha and Trevor take it upon themselves to battle these. But just when Dracula almost manages to come out of it, Saint Germain uses his Lethomancy stone to close the portal to hell and create his own portal. The Dracula still exists in hell and is living peacefully with his wife. However technically, he is dead but there sure is a way to revive him now.

Again, the origins of his stone are not clearly mentioned but as one can recall from his dream: before the portal to the library tesseract was about to close, the dark female figure had given him the divination stone. With this, we can assume that when he ventured into the portals for the first time with his “loved one”, the only thing he was able to come back with was the stone.

Saint Germain gets the happy ending that he wanted but his part for the story will certainly have something to do in the next season. Also, we’ll have to keep a close eye on his “library visuals” in the infinite corridor as it might have links to the Belmont library that is buried under Alucard’s castle. Also, considering the fact that he had a key role to play in PS2 title ‘Castlevania: Curse of Darkness’, he will probably return in the next season.

“Abandon All Hope”

Meanwhile, somewhere far away from them, Alucard abandons all of his hope and embarks on a dark path laid down by his own father. He puts the bodies of the two Japanese hunters on a stake and places them at his entrance, indicating that no one is now welcomed at his castle. Throughout the span of the series, Alucard was shown to be a rational and kind vampire who did not feed on innocents for his own pleasure. But with the recent events, it seems like he, too, is consumed in his own hate and might tread the same path as his father.

Similarly, after the gruesome events at the castle, Sypha and Trevor discover that The Judge was actually murdering several innocents of the town by simply guiding them towards his apple tree and then killing them with a trap. They discover a huge hidden chamber in his home where they find a room full of children’s shoes and clothes. All these children were apparently just his victims. After this, Sypha and Trevor also begin to lose hope in humanity and that’s when Trevor remarks: “We’ve spent a couple of months living your life—adventures, and victories— and now, we’re living my life.” All hope has indeed been abandoned and at this point, it is hard to tell who’s the villain and who isn’t.