Tags
Alucard, character reviews, Count Dracula, Crispin Freeman, Dracula, Halloween Horrors, Hellsing, Hellsing Organization, No-Life King, Vampire, Vlad Tepes
ALUCARD
Otherwise Known As: Dracula
Titles: The No-Life King, The Bird of Hermes, Hound of Hellsing
Real Identity: Vlad Țepeș
Servant of: Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing
Featured In: Hellsing
Voiced By: Crispin Freeman
I do not doubt that there is anyone in the entirety of the world that has not heard of the name Dracula and the race that he is often the very epitome of vampire kind. While I do not know the exact number of interpretations of the character, I do not doubt that it is somewhere in the triple digits range by this point. Though, to be fair, the same could be said of vampires as a whole by this point and that is precisely why I’ve chosen this particular variation as my all time favorite vampire and depiction of the legendary Count Dracula.
There are many traits found in vampires throughout myth and modern media with the most common always being the thirst for blood and their being immortal in that they don’t die naturally and it takes very specific ways to killing them. There are others but they’ve grown infrequent in recent years as people try to make vampires more “realistic,” which I cannot help but question how anyone could dare to try and limit a vampire’s potential in that fashion. I grew up with tales of vampires being able to turn into bats, control whole clouds of murky mists, and command entire legions of wolves.
Alucard, to put it simply, is everything that a vampire has ever been and could ever be in works of fiction. There is literally almost no skill or power that he doesn’t possess or exercise in his reign as the “Hound of Hellsing.”
Ah, perhaps I should explain that a bit more before I get into how utterly godlike Alucard is in terms of power and ability… Well, to those of you who’ve read the book Dracula, I can assure you that the events that transpired did occur for the most part save that Dracula was not so much slain as he was captured. To those of you who haven’t read the book or seen the cult classic film, get out that rock right now. Seriously, we’re talking literature and film history here.
Though never fully explained as to how the original Hellsing managed to do so, Alucard, as he would later be called, was made into a servant of the family and his powers limited to pitiful degrees. I say pitiful in the sense of it’s still all but impossible to kill him and he can kill a regular human with but a slap to the face and he runs roughshod over any fledgling vampire. Alucard’s “master,” which I use the term loosely as Alucard is something of a rabid dog on a very loosely held leash, is Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing and she is one of the most hardcore female characters I’ve ever seen.
You want to know how hardcore she is? Aside from the fact that she’s nicknamed “The Iron Maiden” and is so awesome as to deserve the royal title of “Sir” rather than “Lady” in the eyes of the Queen of England, Sir Integra has stared down Alucard multiple times and has lived to boast the tale several times over.
That, gentlemen and ladies, is a solid ten on the hardcore meter in my book.
As I said earlier, Alucard’s powers are severely limited and set into six “levels” of control counting down to the full release of his potential: Zero. Depending on the state of his release, Alucard has demonstrated many horrific abilities such as physically altering his form into a demonic humanoid with eyes virtually everywhere on its body, hellhounds, and living shadows.
Actually, that is a particular trick that is never fully explained as to how or why but Alucard can alter his physical form to suit him as he needs even when his powers are fully locked. To date, he has shown the ability to change his appearance from that of his typical “Count” form to the form of a small, teenaged girl. A form that he says he had no reason to take other than for the fact that he wanted to at the time.
The time of course was during World War II when he and another, human, servant of the Hellsing Organization were on a mission to wipe out a faction of the Nazis creating artificial vampires.
So yeah, if it weren’t already obvious, Alucard is not quite there in the head.
When his powers are fully unleashed to their maximum potential, Alucard reverts fully to his original human form garbed in the very armor that he had worn in his war against the Turks and likely the very same armor that he had worn on the day that he had become one of the first natural vampires. I say one of because it has been said time and time again in many varieties of media from books to film that Dracula, though easily one of the greatest and most powerful vampires in existence is not strictly the very first but that’s for another time and another place.
Another and far more frightening aspect of Alucard’s potential as a vampire is the one ability he can only exercise under level zero and that’s his ability to summon familiars. Now, contrary to how that may sound, I don’t mean he can summon creatures like hellhounds or bats to do his bidding.
No, what Alucard can summon forth is each and every person whose blood he had drunk and whose soul he has devoured into himself onto the battlefield as a living army of the damned. This is a frightening thing for any vampire to be able to do but Alucard? A vampire that is close to six hundred years old, fought in numerous wars (most notably World War II), who makes it a freaking afterlife’s goal to scare the crap out of people supposedly strong enough to kill him before devouring them? There’s no doubt about it.
Hail to the No-Life King.