💭 alucard expresses the feelings and fears of abandonment so very well. despite his relationship with his father, alucard will always have a connection to him. he is the opposite of everything his father was: the light to the dark that plagued him. alucard’s dhampir identity, filial rupture amd exile produces, what i call, an existentialist creature. alucard’s being is being constituted by abandonment entirely, mother killed and father is morally and metaphysically caught between species. that structural a sense makes him an entity whose selfhood must be authored against the void.
that reminds me of this quote by Sartre that is, “Existence precedes essence.” abandonment (le néant) produces anguish and the need to choose oneself. alucard’s choice to oppose dracula is an act of self fashioning in response to abandonment. which brings me to lisa’s dying plea: “Do not hate the humanity that took my life.” her last words, her final exhortation motivates alucard’s choices.
i also see this as alucard’s existential dread. his abandonment becomes a perpetual threat, love risks loss, alliances risk betrayal, human risks attachment to his vampiric self. that yields a chronic fear of relational nullify that shapes his behaviour of melancholy. Heidegger’s throwness talks about being-toward-death, thrown into a world not of one’s making and anticipating loss. when alucard has seen and faced loss since birth, when he understands that loss is all there is to his nature, all he can do is wait for it. alucard’s aloofness maps onto the throwness and resolutes authenticity when he acts, i.e protecting humans despite being other. alucard’s words, constantly saying he does not want to become like his father is further proof.
but even after moral commitments, alucard’s fear returns as mistrust and withdrawal. his relationship with sypha and trevor are the proof of his oscillation between intimacy and self isolation which mimics between authenticity and bad faith self deception or the dialect of recognition frustrated by abandonment. (internalised exile/fear of harming others/losing others)
nietzschean perspectivalism and affirmations of overcoming confits what alucard should do: that he should affirm values against nihilism, combatting absurdity through continual revolt. abandonment both curses (persistent grief/fear) and liberates (allows autonomous ethical creation) alucard. his vampiric immortality intensifies the freedom that stretches across the weight of chosen commitments and terrors of endless loss.
he’s my baby :(( and a very fascinating character.
