Malus

is a character in Castlevania and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. He is a mysterious young boy who claims to have been kidnapped from a nearly village and brought into the castle.
==History==
===Background===
After Dracula was defeated by Cornell, the man-beast was forced to shed his powers to save his abducted adopted sister Ada from his clutches, with the Dark Lord, having intended to gain these powers all along, being satisfied. Afterward, Dracula's proxies (Gilles de Rais, Actrise and Death) following instructions given to them prior to his defeat, managed to recover the man-beast powers that were trapped in a crystal and used them to ensure Dracula returned in a new body. He ultimately did in the form of a boy with blue hair and blue eyes, having been born to a couple in a forest cabin on a clear night after seven torrential storms under a blood moon. His birth, as well as his destined defeat at the hand of two people who inherited the powers to fight the Devil, had been prophesized by an Eastern Orthodox Priest.
During his development, he had a happy life under loving parents.
===Castlevania===
On his eighth birthday, his Dracula self had fully awakened via a destructive melody. Around this time, a messenger arrived warning everyone of dark figures flying through the nearby moors. His house, and presumably his family, was torched to the ground shortly thereafter, and he was tied to the back of a devil before being made off. He then left the dungeon, supposedly due to his unbounded ingenuity, though it's implied he simply was allowed to escape due to his true nature.
Dracula's proxies (Gilles de Rais, Actrise and Death) have been kidnapping small children and bringing them to Castlevania, due to it being prophesized that children of Darkness would arrive at the castle and one of them would become Dracula. At the request of the Church, Henry Oldrey rescues the majority of them. Reinhardt Schneider and Carrie Fernandez interact with one such child, a young violin virtuoso named Malus. He appears to be the child of noble parents, being dressed in ornate but slightly worse-for-wear finery. They first encounter him in the hedge maze, as they are stalked by the Gardener and two hellhounds. Before the monsters make their appearance, Malus asks the player for help, stating that the village was burned and he was kidnapped with the rest of the children. He then says that he has a headache and can't remember anymore. Then the monsters show up and he runs away. With the player's help, Malus is led to safety.
The hero next encounters Malus in the Castle Center, where it seems the child has gone mad. After asking peculiar questions and making disquieting statements about Dracula, he runs deeper into the castle before the heroes can investigate.
If the player reaches the Castle Keep before fellow vampire hunter Charlie Vincent, the quest will extend beyond this level. After defeating a vampire assumed to be Dracula, the aerie begins to crumble. As they attempt to escape, Malus attacks them with a bow and arrow while mounted atop a demonic flying steed. After following him, the players see a horrific transformation: Malus ages, becoming an adult, and worse, a vampire. The vampire in the Castle Keep was Gilles de Rais disguised as the Count, while Malus is the true reincarnation of the Dark Lord. He also expresses irritation over how he was forced to "waste years" by having to relive childhood due to being reincarnated.
After Dracula is defeated, his body transforms back into that of a child. Malus looks around and wonders what happened, seemingly oblivious to the events that just transpired. As the player moves to help him, Charlie Vincent arrives on the scene and douses the child with holy water. Malus writhes in pain when exposed to the blessed substance. Vincent explains that the child is not possessed, but is, in fact, a master of deception. Malus then drops the act, assuming his true malevolent nature, and transporting the player to an alternate dimension. He then engages in the final battle, having transformed into his true form: a centipede-wyvern hybrid, in which he is ultimately defeated. Upon his defeat, Malus/Dracula, while roaring in agony from spontaneously combusting, ends up being sucked into a dark vortex that forms below him in the middle of the battlefield (presumably leading to Hell), while the player character, bracing themselves from the resulting sandstorm, avoids looking at him.
If the player does not reach the Castle Keep in time, Charlie Vincent will be caught and vampirized by Gilles de Rais, forcing the player to defeat the former vampire hunter in battle. Without Vincent's assistance, the hero fails in their mission: they are fooled by Malus's act and rescue the boy instead of destroying him. In Reinhardt's ending, he expresses the belief that Malus will grow into the hero that will vanquish Dracula when he is next resurrected. As the two ride away on Reinhardt's horse, Malus's eyes glow red, suggesting he may plan to take measures to prevent another hero from emerging. In Carrie's ending, Malus convinces her to marry him when they get older, promising to always protect her and make her happy. Upon Carrie agreeing to this, Malus quietly remarks that the two now have "a binding contract", suggesting he may plan to turn Carrie into one of his servants.
Even though Malus is never fought in his child form, the player is forced to fight his "other" true form, Dracula.
==Gallery==
Malus.gif
Malus and Demonic Steed.jpg|Malus and Demonic Steed.
==Trivia==
*The Latin word malus means "evil". It is also the root of the word "malice", which is successively defined as the desire to see another suffer and/or cause them harm. This alludes to Malus's intent to mislead Reinhardt and Carrie on their respective quests in the hope that they would end in tragedy.
*After saving her from an attempted suicide and then refusing to slay her, Rosa calls Reinhardt "soft" for not bringing himself to kill a vampire in the shape of a child, and wonders how he could ever hope to stand up to Dracula. This is possibly a hint to Dracula being disguised as the child Malus.
*Malus was the first reincarnation of Dracula adopting a different persona before Soma Cruz (although both characters exist in different timelines). The main difference between the two, however, is that Malus embraced his true identity as the reincarnation of Dracula, while Soma Cruz ultimately rejected this path.
**Coincidentally, Soma after being revealed to be Dracula's true reincarnation upon defeating Graham Jones has similar features to Malus, or rather, the latter's adult form.
*Though Dracula was reawakened within Malus prior to the heroes' siege on the castle, it seems that some degree of the child's innocent mind remained for a time. This is shown by how he seems to display genuine fear and concern during several of his interactions with Reinhardt and Carrie. Due to him referring to Gilles de Rais as "The guardian of my sleeping spirit", it is likely that Gilles de Rais was suppressing Dracula's full power until the time was right to completely restore it. This would explain why Dracula was able to only periodically take over Malus. Of course, it seems that after Gilles de Raise is vanquished, Dracula remains capable of posing as taking on Malus's innocent form without showing obvious signs of his true nature.
**Dracula's control of Malus also seems to have distorted Malus's memory, as the child appears to suffer a headache when he tries to recall events associated with Dracula's rebirth in him.
*Malus, or rather, True Dracula's boss theme is the same as Actrise and Rosa.
*Despite his true nature as a vampire, Malus possesses several aspects to him that are uncommon to vampires:
**Malus is apparently unaffected by exposure to sunlight, as in the bad endings, as well as the first meeting with Malus, he is shown in the daytime without any noticeable effects.
***Malus apparently being unaffected by exposure to sunlight is most likely a reference to the narration to Bram Stoker's Dracula, where the titular character, contrary to later incarnations starting with Nosferatu, doesn't actually die from exposure to sunlight, but is instead weakened by it.
**Malus, while still affected by holy weapons to the extent of causing him pain, seems to be otherwise resistant to them, as after being exposed by Charles Vincent via Holy Water, he merely gets up and taunts them for their efforts.
**One possible explanation for his resistance to traditional vampire weaknesses is that, being reincarnated through the body of a human boy, he (at least partially) possesses a human's natural immunity to these things. However, given his true evil essence, he cannot resist them entirely. This is very similar to Alucard's state, as he can be wounded by certain sacred forces (such as Richter's Divine Storm), but not severely damaged.
*Malus, or rather, Dracula's final form being part-dragon is most likely a reference to how "Dracul", his adopted name, meant "Son of the Dragon" in old Romanian, which was a reference to his real-world basis's father Vlad II, who was inducted into the Order of the Dragon. This angle has been used multiple times throughout the Castlevania series.
*Legacy of Darkness's ending's reference to Malus's true powers as Dracula awakening with a destructive melody was most likely a reference to the title screen for Castlevania 64, which featured a shot of Dracula's castle before cutting to Malus playing the violin.
**As Dracula's reincarnation, Malus's natural talent for playing the violin could indicate that Dracula himself was skilled at playing it.
==Footnotes==
==External links==
*Konami of Europe's Malus profile (Internet Archive)
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es:Malus
Category:Antagonists
Category:Dracula
Category:Dracula Relatives
Category:Male Characters
Category:Vampires
Category:Castlevania 64 Characters
Category:Legacy of Darkness Characters