Isaac quotes from Castlevania

Dracula

My generals, we prosecute a good war. In killing my wife, humanity has proven to me that they don't deserve Wallachia. Wallachia will now become our seat. We will scour them off the land. We will continue to use the night hordes, all the creatures of terror that humanity once drove away. Afterwards, I think I will give Wallachia to them. (more to himself) Perhaps, that will be better.

Dracula

Hector, Isaac, present me with plans for our next steps today.

(outraged) The only two humans in your inner court, and they are the ones who will plan our next attack?!

Dracula

The only two generals in my court who are not driven by thirst. The only two who are bound by loyalty and intellect. True. They are not vampires like you and I, Godbrand. And that is why I trust them. For we are about the business of wiping humanity from the Earth. And they still stand with me.

What the hell was that? He summons us from all over the world, tells us it's war. We're finally putting the screws to the livestock and taking over. And now this? Turning the whole thing over to a couple of humans? What is this shit?

Hey! Where are you two going?

We're going to talk to him.

Why would he want to talk to you rather than me? Perhaps he wants to meet with his own kind.

Godbrand, you've never met anything you didn't immediately kill, fuck, or make a boat out of.

Isaac

I don't understand why our lord doesn't tie you up outside with the rest of the animals.

Bigot! I like boats! I'm a fucking Viking! We're supposed to make boats out of things!

Dracula

Isaac. I feel like the tone of the War Hall is turning against me. Even Hector looks at me, as if he no longer knows me.

Isaac

I have respect for Hector, but he is a gentle soul. He's still a little boy. Probably the same little boy who didn't understand why he was beaten for keeping pets.

Dracula

[chuckles, sits next to him] Well... His pets were reanimated dead animals. One can understand any parent's discomfort, at a dead cat doing a dance in the living room.

Isaac

He really only wants pets, you see. He really only understands pets. That's how he perceives your war. To cull humans back to a small population and then keep them in pens; he understands that.

Dracula

That is partly my fault. He's a child in a man's body; that does make him easy to lie to.

Isaac

You are Dracula. No one has a right to your true beliefs.

Dracula

Not even you?

Isaac

Not even me. You've given me purpose, and treated me with respect. A lie doesn't change that. You are unique; you don't owe anybody anything.

Dracula

...You, Isaac, are the only one I've told the truth to. Because I believe you are the only one... who grasps the necessity of it all.

Isaac

You rarely come to my working place. How can I be of service to you, Master Dracula?

Dracula

[meets his eyes]... Are you still my friend?

Isaac

Always.

Dracula

...Then know, that you may be alone.

Isaac

Your son is here.

Dracula

Alucard has entered the castle?

Isaac

And a woman who stinks of magic. And a hunter. To your study. [they reach Dracula's study] Behind me, Dracula. They will not reach you while I live!

Dracula

[astonished] You would give your mortal life to preserve my immortal one?

Isaac

To save your genius, your knowledge, and your will? Without question. I am just a Forgemaster. Yours is the wisdom of ages.

Dracula

... You are the greatest of your people, Isaac. [behind them, Dracula's magic mirror begins to assemble] You have a soul, I think. Perhaps that is more valuable to the world to come than a dusty collection of books and apparatus. Or perhaps you simply deserve a better fate than to die instead of me.

Isaac

I choose my death, as I chose my life.

Dracula

[puts a hand on Isaac's shoulder] Then, I regret only that I have taken a choice for you.

Isaac

No! Dracula! No!

Alucard

Father.

Dracula

Son.

Alucard

Your war is over.

Dracula

[smirks] Because you say so?

Alucard

It ends... in the name of my mother.

Dracula

[sharply] It ENDURES in the name of your mother.

Alucard

I told you before I won't let you do it. I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide.

Dracula

You couldn't stop me before.

Alucard

I was alone before.

Isaac

Keep moving. I'm not in the mood.

Well, what do we have here? It's thirsty, whatever it is. Don't drink the entire pool.

Isaac

There is enough water for all.

Oh, I don't care about all. I only care about us.

Isaac

There will be plenty for you after I'm gone.

But perhaps we want it all.

Isaac

Yes, you probably do. Your kind always does.

I think the desert has left us a little gift, don't you?

Put a rope around it. Drag it behind us. Perhaps we can sell it at the next town. Unless we get hungry between now and then, I suppose.

Isaac

Is that really the best you have? Your best response to finding a lone stranger drinking at an oasis. Call him "it," and immediately draw plans to sell him or eat him?

You don't matter. You don't deserve my best. You're just some drifting clump of shit I discovered on the road and I'll do with you as I wish. Only I and my friends here matter. You are simply meat.

Isaac

I'm not human?

Oh, I'm sure you're human, Sir Philosopher of the Water Hole. I simply don't care.

Isaac

(smiles) Me neither.

Isaac

[smiles] You have nothing to fear from me. We were just leaving.

No.

Isaac

... No?

No! You will not enter Genoa. Get back on your ship, with your monstrosities, and leave.

Isaac

[glances over his shoulder] ...It seems my ship has already left. It has a shrewd captain. It took his wit, to show me that I'd stopped praying. Can you imagine that? I stopped praying and devoting myself, and I hadn't even noticed... what a monster I have become. You don't want me to be a monster right here, in your nice port, do you? Let us pass.

No.

Isaac

My ship is gone, and I need to go north. Let us through.

We'll drive you and your filthy creatures into the sea, if we have to! We know what's been happening in Wallachia! It will not happen here!

Isaac

Ohh... I cannot believe this is happening again. It's absurd. I just... can't. [angrily] Why do I keep doing the same thing, and expecting a different result? Isn't that the definition of insanity? Am I mad? [pause] You know... one day, the last of you will ask me: "Why did you work with Dracula himself, to murder all the people?" And you know what I'll say? It's because you're all so fucking rude.

Isaac

[drawing his Forgemaster's dagger] Bring me fresh material!

Isaac

Where's the one that can talk well? The one with the eyes I made in Genoa?

You mean... me?

Isaac

I do. Sit with me a moment.

What do you wish?

Isaac

I was curious. The night is long, and I have been given much to think of late. May I ask you a question?

Of course.

Isaac

Do you remember who you were, before you went to Hell?

I... almost do. [thinks on it] It's like I remember how it was to dream. And to remember moments of the dream. But never the entire play. Do you see?

Isaac

I do. What do you remember?

I was... a scholar.

Isaac

Really?

I was. In a place called... Athens. I think it was a long time ago.

Isaac

What did you study?

I was a philosopher.

Isaac

And this was a thing that sent you to Hell?

I lived as a man during a time in the empire that ruled Athens, changed its religion and laws. I believed Philosophy to be the Studies of the Systems of the World and our purpose in it. And yet discussions of the nature of the Divine became a crime.

Isaac

Who declared this a crime?

Christians. To be a philosopher was a sin. And one important Christian was heard to say, that the people should hunt down sinners and drive them into salvation, as a hunter drives his prey into traps.

Isaac

To think about God would surely not be a sin in God's eyes.

Perhaps. And yet... here I am.

Isaac

And perhaps you did not tell me all of your dream.

I was betrayed, Forgemaster. I was hunted, I was tortured, I lied for my life. In a church, before a judge. I gave up others, so that I may live. I became a sinner.

Isaac

And?

They killed me... anyway. I woke up in Hell, because this world is insane, and I learned something about sin.

Isaac

[Looking disturbed by FlysEyes story] And what did you learn?

I learned... to like it. [begins to crawl to Isaac] Yet here I am, back on the surface of the Earth... strong and free, in a world where thinking is considered something that should be tortured and murdered. [He stops crawling and then disturbingly begins to smile] Thank you for my second life. [Isaac looks at the Night Creature with remorse] I intend to use it well, and make wonderful new dreams of it.

May I ask you a question?

Isaac

Of course.

What are we doing here?

Isaac

That is a very broad question. Be more specific. Sit.

I do not need to tell you what night creatures are, forgemaster.

Isaac

You can call me Isaac. [offers him a berry] Would you like a berry?

Case in point. I am a night creature. I eat... blood and... meat.

Isaac

[smiling] A berry would probably not kill you.

Night creatures kill, destroy and... despoil. It is... our pleasure.

Isaac

Night creatures do the will of their forgemasters.

Then perhaps I simply don't understand your will. You have us... burying people.

Isaac

The city was littered with dead. Too many of them were too decayed to be converted by magic.

So?

Isaac

So they need to be buried. You are not a fool. Insects and diseases would breed. And I would remind you that everyone here was a victim. They deserve a burial.

Then why do we care about... insects and diseases?

Isaac

Ask your question.

We... kill, destroy and... despoil! You have us burying the rotten... dead and rebuilding and repairing this place. Why do you have us going against... our... nature?

Isaac

Your nature is fluid. You believe you are tools of destruction only because this is how your kind have always been used. Have a berry.

Memories.

Isaac

It's not blood or meat, but you don't appear to have died from it. I'll answer your question. This city was once home to many hundreds of people, perhaps more. It could be resettled, once the bodies are buried, the debris is disposed of and the structures are repaired. We will be moving on soon. After we are gone, the city will be here for people to find and make homes in. Would you like another berry?

I think so.

Isaac

Take one. You see, you can use a hammer to build a house or crack a skull. You are returned to Earth as tools, and I will use tools as I wish.

[as he tastes the berry] So many... memories.

Isaac

I can also choose, in the end, to recognize that you are not tools at all. For no tool would taste a berry and remember the time in its first life when it encountered them.

But we... are creatures of... Hell. To be commanded... to fight.

Isaac

One day Hell will be emptied and its doors will rattle in the wind.

What?

Isaac

Through my hand, God lifts the damned from Hell in his mercy to enact their penance on the Earth as my soldiers.

Yes.

Isaac

[angrily] Should the penance on Earth be eternal TOO?!

[confused] I... do not know.

Isaac

[calm again] Neither do I. We should find out together. In the meantime, we can both do a little more than what we were intended for.

May I make an observation?

Isaac

You may.

You are changing. But, there is still revenge in you, I think. But... other things, too.

Isaac

Perhaps.

Are we still fighting, Isaac?

Isaac

We're always fighting for something. But I take your meaning. Soon.

Is that Isaac? The least interesting man, in Dracula's castle.

Isaac

Hello, Carmilla.

Eat shit! Is this about Dracula? Hector's downstairs, if you want someone to kill.

Isaac

I've spoken to Hector.

Oh. I see. The humans are sticking together.

Isaac

I understand you have developed some more... ambitions?

I'm nothing but ambition. I'm a Queen. This world belongs to me, because the likes of you, never knew what to do with it!

Isaac

I am not sure that is the point of having a world.

What kind of Druid bollocks is that?

Isaac

An opinion I came to, wandering the world, following your destruction of Dracula, his army and his castle.

I never touched his fucking castle. [chuckles] So, you've personally come to Styria, to kill me, is that it?

Isaac

...I think the world would be a better place without you, yes. You can't be trusted. I would always fear you, and your ambitions. So, yes, I'm very much afraid, I have to kill you.

Isaac

Where is your vampire friend?

This structure has a basement; she's down there for the moment.

Isaac

How is your hand?

[lifts his bandaged hand] I may never play the pipe organ again.

Isaac

[amused] Did you ever?

No, but I might've wanted to. [Isaac crosses to a table holding a pitcher of water and a bowl of limes] Do we now ride, to aide the return of Dracula?

Isaac

...No.

What?

Isaac

No.

But, that- [clutches his forehead in frustration and confusion] I've been working towards this for weeks!

Isaac

Of course you have. [fills a cup with water] You feel guilt. You want redemption.

I want to mend my mistakes.

Isaac

...The mistakes, you have suffered for. [Hector sits] That said, Hector, you had no agency in those events. You were manipulated. You were used as a tool for leverage, by those who were truly responsible, for the end of Dracula.

You believe that?

Isaac

I've had a lot of time, to put it all together and think it all over. Do you know... I've even been talking to other people?

...Actual living people?

Isaac

Well... mostly. [slices a lime]

[scoffs, looks at Isaac curiously]... You've changed.

Isaac

I hope so. I believe you have as well. [pause] Let him sleep, Hector. We were both mistreated by the human world. [he squeezes the lime's juice into the water] We were both admirers of Dracula's intellect. We both saw something bigger than ourselves, in him. We both wanted to see the world, punished. [shakes his head] We can do more than that. Dracula earned his rest. We can, and should, move forward. [raises the cup to Hector] What do you want, Hector?

[looks down at his maimed hand] ... I want to be left alone. With Lenore. I want to read... and make things, and think. That's... all I really want, now.

Isaac

Then you shall have it.

...What do you want, Isaac?

Isaac

[drinks] ...I have recently begun to consider the future. Which has been a novelty for me, because I never really thought I had one. This is how they get us, Hector. They convince us that there is no future; there's only an eternal now... and the best we can do, is survive until dawn, and then do it all again. That's no way to live. And I have discovered, to some surprise... that I am interested in living. [he picks up Hector's Forgemaster's hammer] I am interested in building a way to live. And I think I will start here. I have come to wonder, that perhaps Dracula did not run things well... even before his wife died. He lived in one, long night, and never the future. I think, perhaps, he earned his rest... and that we should not disturb it. I will instead, build something new, on all these old bones. Something where people can live, for a future. [smiles] I'm going to live.