Elizabeth Bartley is a character and boss featured in Castlevania: Bloodlines. She is portrayed as the vampiric niece of Count Dracula and serves as one of the game's primary antagonists.
This dropdown contains the synopsis of Elizabeth Bartley’s story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise!
Early Life
Elizabeth was born in 1560 in Transylvania, Hungary, to the Bartley family, who had deep ties to the region and a rumored connection to the Tepes lineage. As a child, she was forcibly betrothed to Nadazy Ferentz, marrying him at the age of 15 in 1575. They settled in Cheyte Castle, located in Nietots, Hungary. However, Nadazy's frequent absences from the castle left Elizabeth frustrated. During this time, she began studying magic under the guidance of the sorceress Drolta Tzuentes and torturing servants in the castle’s basement.
In her quest to maintain her youthful appearance, Elizabeth turned to a gruesome practice: murdering young virgins to use their blood. Even after Nadazy’s death in 1600, when Elizabeth was 40, her violent obsession continued, resulting in the deaths of thousands.
Rumors of her horrific acts eventually reached the Hungarian king in 1610, prompting him to order Count George Turzo to investigate. Upon discovering the bodies of countless victims, Elizabeth was confined to a sealed room within her castle, with only small openings for air and food. She remained there for four years, and her ultimate fate remains uncertain.
Events of Castlevania: Bloodlines
In the early 20th century, Elizabeth was revived from a 300-year slumber by Drolta Tzuentes, who had somehow escaped execution. Awakened at the ruins of Castle Dracula, Elizabeth sought vengeance against the Austrian imperial family, blaming them for her past imprisonment. She orchestrated the assassination of the Austrian prince, using the chaos of the ensuing war to her advantage. Her ultimate goal was to harness the souls of the countless war dead to resurrect her uncle, Count Dracula, whose restless spirit lingered after his defeat by Quincy Morris.
In 1917, Elizabeth turned Lucy Seward, Eric Lecarde’s fiancée, into a vampire, though her reasons for doing so remain unclear.
As part of her plan to revive Dracula, Elizabeth set out for Castle Proserpina in Whitby, England, where his spirit awaited. However, her progress was thwarted by Eric Lecarde, determined to avenge his fiancée, and John Morris, Quincy’s son. The duo pursued her across Europe, ultimately confronting her at the castle before she could complete the resurrection ritual. Elizabeth was defeated, and her plans were brought to an end.
Transformation: Vampires are able to turn into bats, wolves, fog, and other sorts of creatures as they please.
Super Strength: Vampires are incredibly superhumanly strong, even for the average creature of the night, being noted to be stronger than even Werewolves.
Super Speed: Vampires can move incredibly fast, to where all of them leave behind light projections due to how fast they're moving, while they can control their speeds even to approach speeds such as sound. They are normally beyond even other creatures in the castle such as the White Demon who moves at the speed of light at top speed.
Medusa Transformation
Elizabeth Bartley assumes the form of the gorgon Medusa, a monstrous transformation that grants her devastating offensive abilities.
Fireball Barrage: Medusa spews two fireballs that undulate across the screen in high and low arcs, creating a deadly pattern for enemies to navigate.
Flame Stream: Breathes a vertical stream of fire that ascends before descending near the ground, scorching everything in its path.
Tail Whip: Lashes her serpentine tail across the floor in a whip-like motion, striking with immense force.
Claw Swipe: Performs short lunges while swiping with her claws to attack enemies in close range.
Elemental Orb Summoning
Once Medusa is defeated, Elizabeth reverts to her vampiric form and takes a more magical approach to combat.
Orb Summon: Conjures multiple elemental orbs that circle her, each representing an attack type: magic, fire, lightning, or physical damage.
Elemental Assault: Commands an orb to transform into an elemental attack, such as a magic blast, fire burst, lightning strike, or a high-speed dagger.
Teleportation: Continuously teleports across the chamber to evade attacks and reposition herself for counterattacks.
Other
Standard Tactics
Elizabeth Bartley reveals herself in an ornate chamber, flanked by statues and a coffin, but quickly transforms into the monstrous gorgon Medusa.
Medusa launches two fireballs that travel in undulating patterns—one high and one low—forcing precise positioning to avoid them.
She exhales a column of flames that rises and then descends near the ground, requiring crouching to evade the attack.
Her tail strikes the floor with a whip-like motion.
Between her main attacks, Medusa advances gradually, lunging forward and slashing with her claws.
Elizabeth summons elemental orbs that orbit her while teleporting to distant points in the room. Each orb represents an element and transforms into an attack, such as fire, lightning, magic, or a swift dagger symbolizing physical damage.
Striking Elizabeth forces her to teleport, removes one orb, and once all are removed she'll finally take damage.
Once all the orbs are destroyed, she conjures a new set and continues her assault.
Countess Erzsébet Báthory was an infamous serial killer –one of the most prolific female ones in history– who's thought to have killed up to 650 victims over her life, all young women. This, along with myths about her bathing in their blood to keep herself youthful, has led to her commonly being associated with vampires. In addition, the Countess was distantly related to the historic Vlad III Drăculea, but, contrary to the game's background, she was his cousin rather than his niece.
Bartley's Japanese name, Erizabēto Bātorī (エリザベート・バートリー), is an antiquated way to render Erzsébet Báthory's name and was probably intended as a direct reference to the historical figure. The Japanese version also places Elizabeth's death in 1614, further reinforcing the connection, as this was the year of Erzsébet's death.
According to an internal document shared by Konami's Chicago offices to Electronic Gaming Monthly as part of the prerelease of Castlevania: Bloodlines, the idea of Bartley being Báthory is brought up, giving her backstory up to her execution in 1614, including her marriage to Ferenc II Nádasdy and occupation of Čachtice Castle. Her executioner is stated to be György Thurzó in the document, while her relationship with Drolta is reversed, with the sorceress instead being the one who inspired Elizabeth to "torture her servants in the basement".
The game states that Elizabeth had assassinated the Crown Prince of Austria to trigger the events of World War I. In reality, the crown prince, Rudolf, took his own life in 1889. It was his cousin, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in 1914 led to the war.
In the fight against her, it is argued whether she either transforms into or summons Medusa, and is referred to as "Medusa" in the end credits of the American localization. However, it is more then likely she transforms into Medusa. The in-game animation showcases it as a form she takes, as the sprites are simply swapped out. Supporting the idea that Medusa is indeed Elizabeth under that form, is that when playing on Easy mode Elizabeth dies right after killing Medusa, as Medusa was her all along, and when killed and losing her powers, she is forced to return to her humanoid form while dying.
The color and uniquely dragon-like form of Medusa might be a reference to the historical Báthory's coat of arms, which featured a long, light-green dragon with a prominent claws (or fangs) motif and a long whip-like tail coiled numerous times along it, very similar to how Medusa has hers in the game.
The lead female antagonist in the canceled game Castlevania: Resurrection, known as The Countess, may in fact be Countess Elizabeth Bartley; however, she was portrayed as Dracula's lover rather than his niece in that game, so this link is uncertain and unlikely.
Bartley's actions were indirectly responsible for the events of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (which is the direct sequel of Castlevania: Bloodlines), as her triggering World War I led to the deaths of Brauner's daughters and ultimately to his turning to villainy, and which in turn led directly to Eric Lecarde's death at the hands of Brauner and his own vampirized daughters, Stella and Loretta.
In Castlevania Judgment, the bathing in blood element of her backstory is given to that game's version of Carmilla. They are separate characters, though. Eric's ending mentions "Dracula's niece" (Elizabeth Bartley), not Carmilla (who has no known blood ties to Dracula).
Her name resembles that of her uncle Dracula's (Mathias Cronqvist) first wife, Elisabetha. However, it's unknown if there is any relation between both. More so, because other than Elizabeth's family relationship to Dracula and her date of death, no other details are given.
It must be noted, though, that Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was released several years after Bloodlines, and the choosing of name for Mathias's wife could have been either deliberate or merely coincidental, the latter without any intention of implying a reference between both characters.
Misconceptions
"Gaiden" means "Non-Canon" or "Alternate Timeline"
This stems from the belief that when Iga or a producer calls a Castlevania game a "Gaiden" it is therefore non-canon or an alternate timeline and can be dismissed. This, however, is not the case.
The term "Gaiden" merely just means a side story, spin-off, or a separate tale. The term "Gaiden" does not determine the canonicity of a work, it just lets you know if the game is a spin-off/side-story or if it's a main story. Take, for instance, the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories would be considered a gaiden, as it's a side-story and spin-off title that isn't a mainline numbered title, however, it is in all manners canon and important to play to understand Kingdom Hearts II.
The same can be applied to Castlevania itself, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a gaiden game. Yet it is very obviously canon and pretty important to play to understand more of Alucard's backstory. The idea of a Gaiden game for the Castlevania series itself would be any game not dealing with one of Dracula's main 100-year-resurrections, which in this case, even Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is in a way a gaiden, despite being completely canon.
This is all to say that Gaiden does not at all mean "non-canon" or "alternate timeline" and should never be treated as such, the term itself has nothing to do with the canonicity of a product.
IGA Statements Quoted by a Fan
Any statements Iga has made about Judgment that don't come from this IGN interview or a sourced and reputable article are not usable. This is, of course, referring to the popular statements used when discussing Judgment's Canoncity about a fan asking IGA about the game's Canoncity on Facebook, here are some of them below:
Fan: You mentioned Legend of Cornell was an alternate continuity. However, Cornell appears in Castlevania Judgment, which I believe is not an alternate continuity. How does that work? is he from a different universe than the other characters? It is not really explained in the game itself so I was hoping you could give some clarification on the issue.
IGA: Judgment is a work that surpasses space and time and brings them together.
Fan: I get it. So, is the explanation I suggested in the previous reply possibly correct?
IGA: I don't think it's exactly correct. Judgment is a work born of thinking it would be fun to remove all the hedges and bring characters that appeared throughout the series together. I think that you need to view it as an event from another world which does not consider things like timelines or parallel dimensions at all.
Now these seem like pretty clear-cut statements until you start to try to find where these come from.
There is no way to find anything sourced or verifiably proven that this person spoke to Iga. Trying to look up the person didn't get any real results either.
Translation: Regarding the Famicom version and the X68000 version, the X68000 version is an arrangement based on the Famicom version. The arrangement of a game is the kind of thing where you add a lot of different things as needed, so honestly speaking, it think they both should be considered legitimate. In conclusion, I think they should be considered as the same scenario of fighting to defeat Dracula, just with a different middle part. The Super Famicom version is different as well... If you simply must have a clear answer, the Famicom version must be given deference."
Now the quote itself doesn't state remakes or remasters are non-canon despite what people believe. It's moreso a quote of Iga stating that all of them are the same scenario, just with differences. However, an interesting point is that Iga says the NES version should be given "deference", as in to defer to the NES version.
Overall due to the quote itself having no source, it is unusable. The way we will treat remakes, remasters, or ports here however is that they are all equally canon unless stated otherwise. Most of these tell the same story with the only real differences being extra background information added, such as Haunted Castle having it be Dracula stole Simon's wife, though the same overall story still applies even here. Iga himself has already expressed that the original Castlevania's story is pretty simple[278] and Simon having a wife does not affect anything in the overall narrative. Super Castlevania IV notes that Simon is a vampire, though this was due to a novel writer making him a vampire in their novel. The novel was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Super Castlevania IV but was then dropped and made its own thing. Super Castlevania IV itself is still canon, but the subplot of Simon being a vampire is not. The most recent timeline even acknowledges it as canon[279].
A: This is a potent ability but has nothing to do with Attack Potency, there is no quantification for "destabilizing the flow of time", along with this, even if it was taken as physically, then it would be overtime as the effects are not noticeable throughout most of Curse of Darkness. Thus this is merely potent Time Manipulation.
Q: Shouldn't Dracula and by proxy anyone that scales to him get tier 2 for him being able to sustain his castle?
Q: Shouldn't Castlevania characters that scale to Death have Infinite speed due to Death being able to kill distance itself with his attacks?
A: Killing distance to attack is not a speed feat, it's a method of Spatial Manipulation by circumventing and ignoring distance, while one can say the attack spawns on you instantly, this is not really something quantifiable. Along with this, it would only scale to characters comparable to Death during post-Dawn of Sorrow, as Soma notes Death is far faster than he remembered from his fight with him in Dawn of Sorrow[292].
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "As a start, the castle has an infinite supply of zombies and drawn by the castle’s magic, numerous other monsters appeared, perhaps their existence is allowed by a part of the magic that governs the original Dracula’s castle. Perhaps, people who sought to resurrect Dracula had called upon those countless monsters. Among the usual monsters, there are other beings with incomparable power and it has been told that extreme caution must be exercised when facing them. The dark lord Dracula’s confidant, Death His two demonic subordinates Slogra and Gaibon The demon with a fear inducing gaze, Balore
With numerous [things] gathering in its body----- [He is many, he is one] ----- Legion The demon with mastery over time, Zephyr The cursed king of dolls, Puppet Master And from the ancient times, the 4 pillars that guard the castle-----Medusa, Frankenstein, Mummy and Giant Bat Other monsters that are too many to list also guarded the castle and it was said that they were ranked by their prevailing magic powers.
↑Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls Chapter 6 Accursed Cranium
↑Castlevania: Curse of Darkness Manga Volume 2 Chapter 4 "Redemption"
↑Estimating Weight of Logs and Standing Timber Page 2
↑Akumajou Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "I had come to destroy evil. A spectacled vampire hunter confirmed this as his duty. In front of him is a [grotesque creature] whose dreadful power can be felt. The creature appears human but the instant he looked at it, all of his body’s cells cried out in terror. “The timing is bad, church person.” Whilst listening to the words said by the [grotesque creature], the young hunter kept on reminding himself. -----I am …… I ought to be a vampire hunter."
↑Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls Chapter 9 Vessel for the Lord
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "Ever since the Middle Ages, every 100 years, this legendary castle would rise together with its master Count Dracula ----- And whenever it happens, it is said that a clan of vampire hunters will seal it.
Several hundred years have passed with battles with the [dark lord] Dracula. When suddenly, an end to it all has been foretold.
1999----- Thanks to the power of a clan in Japan, Dracula’s castle was sealed inside a [solar eclipse] to disappear forever. However, in this world, there is no such thing as forever. [They] had understood that Dracula’s regeneration cycle ought to have ended. Indeed, people have prepared for this but will it still exist?
The castle is the symbol of the chaos within humans and as long as people exist, it will not be completely sealed.
↑Castlevania: Lament of Innocence Bestiary No. 064
↑Castlevania Judgment True Story Mode, Aeon: Aeon vs. Alucard
↑Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness Master Oldrey Cutscene
↑WN: Last question. Why does Dracula keep putting meat inside the walls of his castle?
KI: You should ask, why do they eat it! I've thought about this stuff. I've actually thought about the candles. The candles are people's souls that were taken by Death or by the vampires. In Japan there are candles that represent life. So, when you release the souls from the candles by whipping them, they give you a "thank you" present. Thank-you hearts, or thank-you holy water. The meat, I have no idea.
↑Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Bestiary No. 44
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "From the time they stepped into the mountains, Curtis and Michelle felt malicious intent in the air.
Even though it is still far away, their bodies seemed to squeal [run away]. There was definitely no room for doubt. It is certain that the [castle] exists at the back of the mountains. The church’s greatest vampire hunter, Julius Belmont must be contacted. However, the conversation jumped into the matter of the disappearance of several village children."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "A drawbridge suspended from the main gate is seemingly welcoming Michelle’s arrival. And her body was telling her [do not go] as her leg muscles were petrified like stone."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "“Uh……aa……Mi……chelle……” That really is no doubt an obsession. The youth had more than 28 holes penetrating his limbs and body. His heart is already starting to fail and he is desperately trying to say something amidst the darkness. “Only…… protect…… you……-----“ When he said those words he must say, the man’s soul already left his body-----becoming one of the floating spirits that wander the halls of the castle. However----- Fate did not allow it. For those people who are involved with the demon castle, even the loneliness of death seemed half hearted----- The man’s soul is pierced by a small scythe that flew in from somewhere. That scythe did not exist physically. It was a diabolic blade created by some magic and possessed a strong soul."
↑Akumajo Dracula: Kabuchi no Tsuisoukyoku "This ominous vortex of magic was similar to what he felt in the [demon castle]. Among all the magic Soma knows, this particular type of sophisticated [power] belonged to----- “……I know I am being rude……” Faster than he can remember, that husky voice rang in front of Soma----- From the shadow of the forest, a large shadow emerged. “……tch!”