Seemed weird that the team got attacked at the cottage in one of the opening episodes but it continues to be treated as a safe place for the rest of the show.
Is it though? Annette specifically asks if they're going to sit there and "wait for another attack" at one point. As far as I know the vampires don't know about that location though, and the Abbot is keeping it a secret for the sake of Maria and Tera, so why shouldn't it be relatively safe? I think the first attack was random, just night creatures searching for food on the outskirts of town - they ran into opposition and moved on.
On the other hand, Trevor rediscovered the hold which had all kinds of monster hunting knowledge, so in theory Richter shouldn't be entirely in the dark here?
Richter was separated from his family at an even younger age than Trevor, far away from the Belmont Hold, so I think he would have much less knowledge. Tera could have theoretically known about them as a Speaker, but she too was separated from her family at a relatively young age.
The priest's continuous doubling down absolutely works from a story and character standpoint, but it be nice to have one single representative of the church in this franchise who is not a complete turd, just as a change of pace.
Eh, I'm not sure if that's necessary. I think a theme of the series is to show how religion is responsible for bringing so much evil into the world, which may or may not have some interesting parallels with another universe I know....
That being said, maybe Mizrak fits that role for you?
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u/Merlin_the_TunaOct 11 '23
Is it though? Annette specifically asks if they're going to sit there and "wait for another attack" at one point. As far as I know the vampires don't know about that location though, and the Abbot is keeping it a secret for the sake of Maria and Tera, so why shouldn't it be relatively safe? I think the first attack was random, just night creatures searching for food on the outskirts of town - they ran into opposition and moved on.
That's a good point but kind of raises further questions! My brain was definitely on "night creatures = team vampire" cruise control to start off with, but you're right that this is really indicative of either random night creature roaming OR a deliberate attack by the abbott. Neither one really squares for me -- they only have a handful of demons and are generally operating under wraps early on, and it's not clear what the abbott would've been looking to accomplish in a purposeful attack. Maybe to just catch Maria and Tera, but it didn't exactly look like that?
Ultimately I assume the thought process was "cool fight scene, introduce the rest of the cast, don't sweat the details".
Richter was separated from his family at an even younger age than Trevor, far away from the Belmont Hold, so I think he would have much less knowledge. Tera could have theoretically known about them as a Speaker, but she too was separated from her family at a relatively young age.
I don't expect him to have a library card, just that the family having access to the hold would logically lead to more of that knowledge being well at hand as part of learning the family business. He shouldn't know esoteric lore off the top of his head, but broad strokes like "Night Creatures: they're a thing" would be one of those things Julia should logically have known about and at least mentioned somewhat prior to her death.
Eh, I'm not sure if that's necessary. I think a theme of the series is to show how religion is responsible for bringing so much evil into the world, which may or may not have some interesting parallels with another universe I know....
I'm not about to write apologia for the world's most prominent pedophilia ring. (Though thinking on it, the series moving from Wallachia to France means they likely also moved from the Orthodox church to the Catholic church, which might've been an interesting side element to incorporate.) My point is more that, while a lot of heinous things have been done by and in the name of organized religion, every action they've ever taken is not a mustache-twirlingly evil deed. I do some food charity work, and each year some of our grants go to food pantries with explicitly religious backgrounds and missions. It doesn't cancel out the Spanish Inquisition or anything, but churches and their offshoots have been known on occasion to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. and that tension could add a lot of depth to a conflict that has been pretty thin across 5 seasons of TV thus far.
And the weirdest part of it is that Nocturne actually does start to gesture in this direction! The argument between Maria and the abbott in episode 1 starts to touch on this, but the franchise's repeated hammering that Church = Ultra Satan turns the abbott's argument into a strawman more than providing a satisfying rebuttal. And Tera's later reticence to believe the abbott is behind everything is specifically because she has experienced the church, and his church in particular as an important, charitable pillar of the community. It would just work better if we as the audience saw that literally at all, and it's possible to do things like acknowledge the church as net negative while also acknowledging that lopping off priest's heads and burning down cathedrals is neither morally nor strategically sound.
