Summary
“Walk Away” finds mistrust breeding among the vampires, and understanding developing between humans and night creatures.
This recap of Castlevania season 4, episode 3, “Walk Away”, contains spoilers.
One of the things I like about Castlevania is that it gives the night creatures, hideous monstrosities born of a Devil Forgemaster like Isaac, something of a personality. The one at the start of “Walk Away” is a giant bipedal fly thing, with eyes like mounds of bubbling flesh and a slack mouth flanked by mandibles. Its personality is curious; it wants to know why Isaac has tasked its kind with burying bodies and not piling up more of them. It’s a question of one’s nature. Why would Isaac have them betray theirs? As he explains, using a berry as a metaphor, a hammer has more than one use — it can build and destroy. What one thinks is normal and natural doesn’t have to be. During the conversation, the fly, who was previously adamant about night creatures only eating blood and flesh, requests another berry. If Isaac hasn’t necessarily changed its nature, he has given it something to ponder — and a taste for fructose.
Isaac, too, has changed, as he explains to the statue of the old wizard he killed. He has discovered his own agency. He has become not the knife that others wield but the hand that wields it. This is perhaps why, when Varney calls him on the magic mirror to explain his efforts to resurrect Dracula, Isaac is insistent that his own task be completed first. Varney is getting no respect whatsoever so far this season. It’s sure to be something that drives him to irrationality as we progress — not that despotic vampires are particularly rational at the best of times.
Morana and Striga are similarly reaching some revelations in Castlevania season 4, episode 3. Like Lenore, they’re becoming disillusioned with Carmilla’s plans for conquest, which they feel will have them fighting the same fight, circling the same drain, for the rest of their lives. The humans won’t roll over without a fight, and as if to prove their point, an arrow slices through the roof of the tent they’re in. They have been discovered. Bundling Morana into a coffin, Striga dons some very cool-looking “day armor” and starts cleaving their attackers in two. It’s a brutal sequence, a stylized bloodbath, and Striga has little issue cutting them all down. But it proves a point. The villagers and farmers who turned on her had fear in their eyes, not of death, but of not having fought. Morana’s point is made. Attempting to destroy humanity will keep them busy — and apart — forever. Just like that, though, Carmilla contacts them with a message imploring them to come home, since Hector has resumed making night creatures.
“Walk Away” ends with Belmont imploring Sypha to do just that after she considers the possibility of once again being roped into someone else’s story. The storyteller, in this case, is Zamfir, who still wants them to join the royal fight in Targoviste — providing they can be trusted. The glowing stone that Belmont lifted in the previous episode seems to fit snugly into the hilt of the magical dagger he also found. A look at the Court might behoove him. But what other responsibilities would come with making a new friend?
