Isaac

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

For years, Isaac and Hector served faithfully at the right hand of Dracula. As two mortals with the ability to craft demons (called "Devil Forgemasters"), these two were vital for Dracula's plans as they could endlessly crank out minions to populate his castle and fuel his legions. Unfortunately for Dracula and his whole carefully crafted organization,in a href="?section=chronology&page=1476">1476 AD a hero, Trevor Belmont, came calling at the castle, fought his way all the way up the towering demonic fortress, and defeated Dracula, sending the whole shebang crumbling to its very foundation.

At this point, Hector legged it, realizing the error of his ways. He gave up the life of a Devil Forgemaster, moved to a small town, found a woman, Rosaly, to love him, and found simple pleasure in the life of the common man. Isaac, still a faithful servant, was incensed at this betrayal and for the next three years, he watched, and plotted and planned.

Eventually, on a day seemingly like any other, Rosaly went out about town to sell her apples (and thing she apparently regularly did). What she didn't know was that for the days leading up to this fateful one, Isaac had been spreading rumors around town that Rosaly was a witch, that her apples were poisoned, and that Rosaly was evil. The townspeople, gullible schmucks that they were, believed the stories and burned Rosaly at the stake.

Hector was, understandably, quite bereaved at this turn of events. With clues that Isaac was somehow behind this betrayal, Hector storms off to the castle to have his revenge. However, Isaac would not let their encounter end so quickly. He fled, leaving Hector to chase him around the countryside. Their first battle occurred later, at Cordova, where Isaac played with his new toy, bapping Hector around for sport. However, Isaac's sister, the witch Julia, interceded, aiding Hector and preventing Isaac for carrying out his plans. Isaac fled once more with promises of a further encounter.

Later, at the Aiolon Ruins, Hector approaches as Isaac and Trevor engaged in a battle. Trevor had been there, searching for a way to stop the darkness. However, Isaac injures Trevor, gaining what he needed to further his plot, the blood of a Belmont so that he could unseal the abandoned castle. Later, after fooling Hector into resurrecting Dracula's castle, Isaac appears out of nowhere, stabbing Trevor to remove one of the threats to his plans from the board.

Finally, tracking Isaac into the castle, Hector confronts his one-time friend. This time, in their battle, it's Isaac who falls. He had planned to use Hector as a host for the resurrected Dracula, but with his own death that plan had to change. Instead, Death (who had been pretending to be a man named Zead during this whole plot) revealed himself. He used Isaac's dying body as the new host for Dracula. With Hector still alive, though, there was a hero ready to fight the Dark Lord. Dracula was son defeated, joining his own minion, Isaac, on the way back to Hell. In the end, all of Isaac's plans were for naught, and Hector went back out into the countryside once more to find some kind of peace in his life.

• 1479 AD: Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Castlevania Netflix History:

Arriving in season two of the Castlevania anime, Isaac (voiced by Adetokumboh M'Cormack) is one of Dracula's generals, and one of only two of them that are human. Along with Hector, Isaac served as a Devil Forgemaster for the Dark Lord (much like his stated role in the back-story of Curse of Darkness). Together, the two worked to supply Dracula with the forces he'd need to wipe all of humanity off the face of the Earth.

The fact that both of them, Hector and Isaac, were human but still served at Dracula's side, this despite his plan to wipe most (or, really, all) of humanity from the planet, proved to Dracula that these two were his most loyal soldiers. He put them in charge of his plans for conquering Wallachia (and then the world), even ranking them higher than the other vampires in his legion. This pissed off some, like the vampire lord Godbrand, who bitched, time and again, at Isaac about Dracula's plans and what it would mean for vampire kind to have such a decreased stock of humans left to feed upon.

Isaac, though, knew Dracula's true plans: it wasn't just about culling most humans from the planet, and there wasn't really any plan to keep a small herd of humans around to serve as "feeding stock" for the vampire legions. Instead, Dracula planned to wipe all of humanity from the planet entirely, to clear it fully of their stink. Isaac was fully on board with this plan as he hated humanity, too, and wanted nothing more than to see their blight wiped away. This put him directly at odds with Godbrand and, eventually, forced him to kill the vampire lord just to get him to shut up.

Dracula and Isaac were betrayed, though, by Hector and the vampire lady Carmilla. While Isaac had been dealing with the idiotic Godbrand, Carmilla had been whispering in Hector's ear, convincing him to turn against Dracula to "save a small portion of humanity". Hector and Carmilla proposed a plan to move the castle to the seaside town of Braila, ostensibly to cut off the only means of escape out of Wallachia humanity had via the sea. In reality, though, Carmilla had massed her own forces at Braila to attack the castle and take it over.

When Dracula learned the truth, and realized his entire plan was falling down around him, he decided the protect the only man still loyal to him: Isaac. He opened a portal and shoved the Devil Forgemaster through, sealing it behind him. This left Isaac stranded in a desert, far away from Wallachia. He was meant to get on his own path, to find some kind of peace, but Isaac wasn't that kind of person. The first time he settled down at an oasis he was attacked by ruffians. He killed the brigands and then turned their corpses into devils, all with the plan to finish what Dracula had started: he was going to wipe away humanity and make the planet "pure" once more (and maybe get a little revenge in the process).

• 1476 AD: Season 2

The third season of the show found Isaac wandering across the Mediterranean lands, back from the desert he'd been deposited into. His goal was to get back to the main land, into Eastern Europe, so he could track down hector and have his revenge; Hector had betrayed the cause and, for that, he had to pay. Having spent the last few months wandering through these lands, Isaac had encountered many foes, thieves and brigands, and he'd killed them and added their corpses to his collection of forged Devils, building himself up quite the army. While this made him feared it also brought the ire of the guards of many towns who often threatened Isaac if he didn't turn away. Even with promises not to hurt the town the guards were intractable, which only made Isaac more angry and, frequently, he'd then attack the towns, emptying them of the living so he could summon the damned.

In one town he ran across a merchant selling priceless magical artifacts. Here Isaac inquired about a mirror of seeing, a rare kind of relic with few existing copies. Although the merchant had once carried a large version of the device he'd sold it many years earlier to a "lovely vampire couple". He did have a smaller version, though, which he gladly gave to Isaac as a gift, "a favor for a favor" that would be paid if the merchant went to Hell one day. This gladdened Isaac's heart, but that was quickly dashed when another group of men attacked Isaac for being different (and for having a giant army of evil demons behind him, it must be noted).

Battling his way through a town, and looting the corpses as he went, Isaac came to the edge of the sea. This put him in need of a boat, but by chance the Captain of a merchant vessel was a wise and swarthy bloke. He didn't mind the idea of transporting a Devil Forgemaster, and their army of devils, as long as it made the journey interesting (and they were well paid). Isaac and the Captain shook hands, and the trip across the sea was calm and rather nice, especially after the indignities Isaac confront back in the foreign lands. Not that it stopped there, of course, as Isaac was then confronted by yet another group of guards blocking him from entering the coastal town. They said for him to leave, even though the boat that had carried him was gone and there was nowhere else for him to go. So Isaac, of course, killed them all (he was nothing if not consistent).

Across Eastern Europe he ventured, using the small seeing mirror to keep tabs on Hector and aim his path towards his quarry. He eventually came across a countryside empties of its denizens, with only a single old woman left alone in the lands. Her name was Miranda and once, long ago, she'd been a Devil Forgemaster of some power. Time, and age, had taken its toll on her power and when another powerful Magician came into her lands she'd been unable to stop him from taking over. Her power was strong enough to resist the Magician's influence, though, so as he used his powers to take over the minds of all the people in the land, turning them into his autonomous slaves, Miranda had stayed at home, free of his power but otherwise trapped in the land.

Realizing the only way towards his prey was across the lands of the Magician, Isaac ventured deeper into the Magician's territory. Miranda had told Isaac that there was a great artifact within the wizard's tower and that gave Isaac all the excuse he needed to cut a bloody swath through the land as he went. He was met by many of the mindless drones, all of who were sent to attack and kill the Devil Forgemaster. When these drones weren't enough, the Magician pulled their bodies together with a powerful spell, turning them into a great, spherical beast (not unlike Legion) to attack Isaac. The Devil Forgemaster, and his beasts, though, were more powerful and Isaac was able to eventually reach the Magician's tower. He had to fight his way up, battling the bodies that were sent after him, but he did eventually reach the top of the tower where he faced off against the Magician.

As with the drones in his lands, the Magician tried to ensorcel Isaac, casting his mind control magic at the Devil Forgemaster. Isaac, though, had enough power to break the spell and free himself of the curse. He then stabbed the Magician, breaking the magic that held the whole land under its sway. The curse fell away and all the drones it had been controlling died, their life drained as the magic faded away. This left Isaac alone with his devils, free to survey the land and wonder about the evil men do. But it also gave him access to the treasure in the tower, a great sighting mirror like he'd been looking for, a power device he could use to quickly track down Hector and battle the man, once and for all.

• 1477 AD: Season 3

After defeating the sorcerer, Isaac then spent the next six weeks in the ruins of the sorcerer's town. He'd instructed his Night Creatures to rebuild the town, sating some desire within Isaac to create instead of simply killing and destroying. This was a change for Isaac, and for the Night Creatures, as none of them had ever really known creation, at least not since their fall into darkness. Isaac's own change seems spurned on by a need to do something new with his life, to finally move past old grudges and old patterns, to find something for himself that wasn't just hate and death.

Once the town was rebuilt, Isaac gathered his minions together. The town we rebuilt, ready for a new group of humans to take over should anyone decide to pass through the land. It was time, Isaac has decided, to finish what he has started. Using the mirror in the sorcerer's old workshop, Isaac opened a portal to the Castle of the Sisters so he could have his last revenge against the person who betrayed Dracula. Although the assumption was that Isaac wanted to kill Hector, time had apparently softened that grudge. Instead, Isaac turned his anger towards the mastermind of the affair: Carmilla. She was the one he wanted to kill, and she was the one that would pay for the betrayal.

Although Isaac had expected to have to fight through all of Hector's forged Night Creatures, instead Isaac found a willing ally. Hector wanted to make right his part in the betrayal of Dracula and had found his own way to defy the Sisters (despite a curse of control placed upon him). He's laid traps throughout the castle which took out a number of Carmilla's own vampiric guards, and by cutting off his own finger (which wore the ring of control) Hector cut off Carmilla's control of the Night Creature legion Hector had crafted. This gave Isaac, and his demons, a run right through to Carmilla's chamber so they could fight the vampiric queen.

Carmilla did still prove a formidable foe. Armed with a finely crafted sword she battled the demons, on and on, until her whole chamber was bathed in blood. Still the demons came, though, and with Isaac in command, and eventually the battle turned to the point where Carmilla realized there was no winning. As she and Isaac fought she realized that she could either die by his hand or her own so she chose her own sword, striking her fatal blow. Still, she was dead, which was all Isaac wanted.

Talking with Hector, Isaac stated that all he wanted to do was create, to move on from his old life and his old grudges. Although Hector had a plan in place to resurrect Dracula (thus clearing his own debt to the Dark Lord), Isaac had no interest in that plan. He and Hector parted as friends as Isaac set off, which his horde, to find a new land where he could do some good.

• 1477 AD: Season 4

Isaac's story is an interesting one and, honestly, a tad confusing. Two seasons are spent showing his anger towards humans, the awful things they did (and continued to do) to him, which only fueled his rage and his desire to kill all the humans and wipe the Earth clean of their sin. But then, in the fourth season of the show, he had a change of heart and decided that he no longer wanted to kill. While growth for the character was good, it did feel a little out of place. It's an odd note for the character, one that felt like it needed more development to truly be "earned".

Fighting Isaac:

In their first encounter, after a short cut-scene, Isaac with call forth his devil, Able, who will fly around, attacking at the player with his fiery claws. it can also charge across the room in dash attacks, and sometimes dive under ground before leaping up to attack. Isaac, meanwhile, will jump around, occasionally summoning damaging cyclones around him. He'll also pound the ground, causing shock waves to radiate out. You'll have to jump these to avoid damage. He'll also occasionally swipe at you with his spear. The worst part of this battle is simply that Isaac has a lot of health and it can take a fair bit of time to wear him down (with him doing his stupid laugh, repeatedly, the whole time). Just be persistent and you'll get the job done.

Their final encounter, again after a cut-scene, Isaac will charge in, coming after Hector with his laser sword. He'll also summon his devils to attack you, giving you more to deal with. With the devil out, Isaac is often guarded against attacks, so you'll have to deal with what he summons before you can carry on with the fight (not that it stops Isaac from coming after you in the process). This combined with his once again obnoxious level of health, can drag this fight on far longer than it needs to take.