Forgotten
is a Castlevania fanfic written by Hotaru-hime on Fanfiction Dot Net. It's mainly post-canon, happening after Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow but it uses a lot of elements from previous games.
An exploration of Dracula's love for his wife, seen through the eyes of Mina Hakuba — who unexpectedly finds herself more concerned than she would have believed she was by the latest attempt to force her maybe-more-than-a-friend Soma to accept his destiny and ascend as the Dark Lord.
Contains the following tropes
- Berserk Button: Threatening Dracula's beloved is basically asking to be quickly and gruesomely slaughtered by the dude. Even his Soma incarnation will lose any hint of restraint when Mina is endangered.
- Book Ends: The story opens on Elisabetha meeting Matthias as she's reading under a tree. It ends with Soma and Mina having a romantic moment under the same tree.
- Burn the Witch!: What happened to poor Lisa. Interestingly, her execution was motivated by more than religious frenzy — people actively felt threatened by her having influence and power through her marriage to Dracula and her medical prowess, and using that to do good.
- Dhampyr: Discussed by Lisa and Dracula after Adrian's birth. A dhampyr apparently isn't that different from a human child, but they occasionally need to drink blood and it's implied they can turn fully human or fully vampire as they mature.
- Dirty Coward: Sixx-Bit talks a big game, but when he nearly kills Mina and Soma takes that very poorly and almost kills him, he flees.
- Dreaming of Times Gone By: How Mina starts to remember her lives as Elisabetha Cronqvist and Lisa Farenheights. She has a few flashbacks when awake, but they mostly occur when she's sleeping or fainting.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: More than a few minions among Dracula's worshippers are baffled and irked by their Master's refusal to free himself from his love towards his wife, and genuinely think it's a good idea to murder said wife and force Dracula into having a nihilistic breakdown.
- Happily Married: Matthias Cronqvist was so hopelessly in love with Elisabetha he paid her father for her hand and never cheated on her (something that was HUGE for the era). Dracula is just as happy to be reunited with Lisa, building her a chapel in spite of being an unholy being.
- Have We Met?:
- Lisa and Dracula are startled by each other when she first stumbles in his courtyard. It takes some time before the vampire understands the doctor is his wife reborn.
- Alucard cannot help but wonder if he already fought Nancy Grey. She later unveils herself as Carmilla.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Xenon is ultimately done in by Soma in Dracula mode crushing him and absorbing his soul, which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t (temporarily) killed Mina.
- Honor Before Reason: Lisa staunchly refused to escape being burned at the stake in spite of her captor begging her to not unleash Dracula's wrath upon Wallachia, as it would mean dooming twelve people to execution in her stead. Her son quietly muses she always has been far too kind for her own good.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Thoroughly deconstructed, since losing his wife does such a number on Dracula's psyche he tries to murder mankind over it no matter the cause — Elisabetha perished from illness, remember, and Soma is genuinely at risk from losing his marbles if Mina is killed in a car crash. Alucard outright begs Mina to teach Soma how to grow out of it, and she utterly agrees.
- Living MacGuffin: As the reincarnation of Dracula's beloved wife, Mina Hakuba is either threatened with death by ambitious minions seeking to unleash the Dark Lord once again, or protected by mankind's defenders that acknowledge her as the best option to prevent another supernatural war.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Mina is rather irked to learn her friends and parents already knew about her being Dracula's reborn bride, and keeping quiet on the matter.
- The Lost Lenore:
- Elisabetha and Lisa for Dracula, contributing to his omnicidal rampage against the world. Avoiding for Mina to become this is a major motivation for mankind's defenders.
- Alucard admits Maria Renard is one for him. He made his peace with the fact he outlived her, but he nonetheless keeps leaving flowers on her grave, centuries after her death.
- Love Is a Weakness: Xenon is completely disgusted by Dracula falling in love with a human woman, claiming it turned the Dark Lord weak. He's not alone among the Vampire Monarch's minions to believe such.
- Love Makes You Evil: A major problem with Dracula. Even after becoming Soma, he will go homicidally bonkers when someone threatens to kill his beloved.
- Luke, You Are My Father: Alucard awkwardly confesses he's Adrian Farenheights Tepes, son of Dracula and Lisa. So in a roundabout way, he's related to Soma and Mina since they are his parents' reincarnations.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: The Romanian people wouldn't even acknowledge Lisa's marriage to Dracula as valid, since he was a vampire. Dracula's minions also were pretty unhappy about their Master falling for a human and outright plotted to murder her.
- Mama Bear: Lisa snaps at the inquisitor about to burn her alive for calling her son illegitimate and a demon child. Some of it is transferred to Mina, who refuses to let Alucard being killed when Castlevania tries to turn him into the new Dark Lord.
- Momma's Boy: Alucard for Lisa. He's extremely protective of her reincarnation and always finds time to put flowers on her grave once a year, centuries after her demise.
- Morality Chain: Elisabetha and her later reincarnations literally are the key to Dracula's sanity. As long as she lives, he will be content to ignore mankind but when she dies...
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Matthias came back from the Holy Land in order to be at Elisabetha's bedside, only for her to breath her last when he entered the room. It contributed to destroy his sanity.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Lisa's efforts to cure as much people as she could with her medicine against scarlattina made the Church angry enough to condemn her as a witch. And that's without taking in account her softening Dracula, since his minions loathed her to the point they engineered her downfall.
- Past-Life Memories: Half of the story is Mina having flashbacks of Elisabetha and Lisa's existences. Soma also admits he can remember Matthias Cronqvist and Dracula's lives.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Before meeting Lisa, Dracula was focused on spiting God by turning immortal and summoning legions of monsters to defile Earth and was content to ignore humans as they were beneath his notice. Well, until they killed his wife.
- Reincarnation Romance: The crux of the story is Soma and Mina learning they already met and fell for each other thrice.
- Something Only They Would Say: As she's yelling at Dracula, Lisa accidentally calls him "Matthias". It's enough for the vampire to identify her as Elisabetha's reincarnation.
- So Proud of You: Lisa wants for Mina to tell Alucard that she's extremely proud of her son. The dhampyr sounds almost heartbroken when he receives the message.
- Staking the Loved One:
- Julius genuinely likes Soma as a friend, but he won't hesitate to fulfill his duty as a Belmont if Dracula rises anew. Soma fully understands his viewpoint and actually approves.
- When Castlevania tries to claim Alucard as its new master, the dhampyr begs to be killed before he can be corrupted into the new Dark Lord. Soma and Mina refuse and manage to save him by sealing his powers.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Since Dracula won't awake as long as his wife is alive, Mina is very much vulnerable to cults wanting to murder her.
- That Man Is Dead: Alucard doesn't like to be called Adrian, since he renounced his name and lineage when he decided to oppose his father.
- Villain Has a Point:
- Xenon rightfully calls bullshit on Soma's claim that he won't turn evil if Mina died, pointing Matthias Cronqvist couldn't even deal with Elisabetha dying from pestilence.
- The inquisitor about to burn Lisa at the stake is infuriated when she refuses to doom twelve people to be killed in her stead, reminding her that Dracula will ravage Wallachia if he loses his wife and it's a very good reason for her to stay alive.
