This character or verse has mature themes and concepts, thus those of young age are ill-advised to look through these.
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Why won’t you slay me? Aren’t you a vampire killer? Is it because of this woman’s shape? You can’t kill what looks like a girl or a child? Such a softy. How will you ever stand up to Count Dracula…throwing away your life for nothing. Best run along home now.
…your heart is strong and pure. You can defeat Dracula…as long as he exists, the horror continues. No one deserves my fate. …good. Ah, I fear death. My sinful soul cannot hope for forgiveness.
Rosa (ローゼ Rōze?) is a prominent supporting character in both Castlevania (N64) and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. She is mainly relevant in Reinhardt Schneider's story, though she does also briefly appear in Carrie Fernandez's story.
This dropdown contains the synopsis of Rosa’s story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise!
Rosa is a young woman who resides in the Villa near Dracula's Castle and tends to the garden within its walls. Having been turned into a vampire prior to the events of the game, she now inhabits the mansion and waters the roses in the garden with blood. Rosa encounters both Reinhardt Schneider and Carrie Fernandez during their journeys. Although she warns them to leave the area, she does not attempt to hinder their progress.
In Reinhardt's quest, Rosa plays a larger role after their first meeting. Following his exploration of the subterranean caves, Reinhardt finds her in despair, attempting to end her life by exposing herself to sunlight. She pleads with him to kill her and end her suffering, but he refuses, believing her to be undeserving of such a fate. After this encounter, she departs, still burdened by her curse.
Rosa reappears after Reinhardt defeats the Behemoth in the Castle Center, this time under the control of Death, who compels her to fight against Reinhardt. After a difficult battle, Reinhardt defeats her but chooses to spare her life, viewing her as a victim rather than an enemy. Death intervenes and removes Rosa from the scene, taunting Reinhardt with the inevitability of her eventual descent into darkness.
Later, Rosa plays a decisive role during Reinhardt’s confrontation with Death at the top of the Clock Tower. As Death prepares to strike down Reinhardt, Rosa intervenes, sacrificing herself by stepping into the path of Death’s scythes. Fatally wounded, she dies in Reinhardt’s arms, who prays for her forgiveness and promises that she will find salvation. Her sacrifice strengthens Reinhardt’s resolve, and he defeats Death before continuing his mission to face Dracula.
The outcome of Rosa’s story varies based on Reinhardt’s ending. In the true ending, she is granted a second chance at life and is resurrected after Dracula’s defeat. She and Reinhardt share a quiet moment overlooking the ruins of the castle, suggesting the possibility of a romantic future. However, in the bad ending, Rosa remains dead, with implications that her soul was unable to find peace.
Despite her transformation, Rosa demonstrates notable resistance to the darker instincts of vampirism. During her first encounter with Reinhardt and Carrie, she shows no hostility and even seems somewhat kind. Even when forced to fight by Death, her true nature ultimately shines through, as shown by her self-sacrifice to save Reinhardt. Her earlier attempt to end her life by sunlight further illustrates her strong will and desire to free herself from the curse of vampirism.
Personality
Curse of Vampirism: Once a servant tending the castle's rose garden, Rosa's life took a tragic turn after being bitten by a vampire. Her infection has tainted her mind and body, replacing the once peaceful act of watering white satin roses with a much darker purpose. While she outwardly embraces her vampiric nature, her soul fights against it. She has been heard cursing her decaying body and pleading for salvation, saying, "Do not let my unsaved soul die!"
Hope for Redemption: Despite her condition, Rosa holds onto a glimmer of hope buried deep within her thoughts. She dreams of a savior—someone brave enough to free her and the world from the darkness consuming her.
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.
Other
Standard Tactics:
Rosa attacks using a rapier, attempting to slice her opponent occasionally.
She hovers mid-air and summons fire roses as projectiles to overwhelm her target.
Creates an outward-expanding shockwave to catch her opponent off guard.
While her attacks can be relentless, her lack of combat training suggests she is primarily acting under Death’s compulsion rather than her own skill.
Rosa's boss theme is also used for Actrise and Malus (the latter in the first phase).
It's implied that Rosa either was aware that Malus was actually Dracula, or at the very least was aware that he was a vampire, as after Reinhardt saves her from suicide, she chides him for being too soft. She mentions he can't hope to stop Dracula if he hesitates to harm a vampire in the shape of a child (foreshadowing Malus's true nature as the reincarnation of Dracula).
The word rosa is Spanish for "rose", and doing honor to this name, Rosa is always accompanied by a rose motif, such as her tending the garden roses, throwing bloody rose petals around her during her area-of-effect attack, or even her dress itself, which resembles an abstract portrayal of a large rose.
Rosa's design breaks the convention of the typical Vampiress as she is not a seductress nor a sadistic individual like Carmilla. This is due to her soul keeping her humanity.
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[192] 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[193].
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[206].
↑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.
↑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!”
