Dracula (Lords of Shadow)

Gabriel Belmont is the protagonist in the game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a reboot of the Castlevania franchise. Gabriel is a member of the Brotherhood of Light, an elite group of holy knights who protect and defend the innocent against the supernatural. His beloved wife, Marie, was brutally murdered by the evil forces of darkness and her soul trapped for eternity. Her spirit guides him on his quest to rid the land of evil. He learns of an artifact, the God Mask, which has the power to bring back the dead and so sets off on a quest to retrieve it, in order to bring her back to the realm of the living. Gabriel wields a whip-like weapon called the Combat Cross.

Early life
''Some years ago, a child was found on the door of one of the Brotherhood of Lights convents. It is not known who his original parents were though some suspected he was an unwanted bastard from a local wealthy landowner, most likely the Cronqvist family though this has never been proven.''

''The order gave the nameless boy the Christian name of one of the blessed archangels, Gabriel and raised him as one of its own members. The precocious child quickly proved to be extremely talented, developing a mastery of the fighting arts unprecedented in the Brotherhood.''

Gabriel took the surname of Belmont, after his love of mountains and the high places of the World.

''Prone to dark moods and occasional ambivalence, Gabriel was deeply affected by the death of his childhood sweetheart, Marie. Gabriel has embarked on this quest at the request of the elders of the Brotherhood, rejecting the help of his comrades and stoking a burning desire for revenge.''

Mission for the Brotherhood
Some time later, the heavens were cut off from the earthly plane, thus leading the people to believe that God had abandoned them. The Brotherhood of Light thought otherwise. After receiving a message from the 3 founders of their order in heaven, the Brotherhood sent Gabriel to contact the dead and ask Marie if she knew of any means to save the world. Taking up the Combat Cross and an old amulet connected to the old gods, Gabriel begins his journey.

He meets an old god, Pan, who allows him to communicate with Marie and who, throughout the game, aids Gabriel in times of peril. Next he meets a supposed comrade of the order, Zobek, who instructs Gabriel to destroy the Lords of Shadow, the rulers of the demonic forces now driving mankind into extinction. Both Pan and Zobek desire an end to their tyrannical rule, but for very different reasons.

His first great test comes when he meets Claudia, an innocent young psychic and her enchanted guardian the Black Knight, both of whom he slays. Killing the Black Knight grants him the enchanted Dark Gauntlet, allowing him to launch flame based attacks as well as fight back mystical attacks from enemies.

The first Lord of Shadow he faces is Cornell who reveals that the Brotherhood of Light was founded by three divinely empowered saints who led God's army and defeated Satan. And in doing so were rewarded with monumental bounties transcending human parameters and becoming divine beings in heaven, but at the cost of discarding all chaotic elements within themselves. The result of this transformation was that each of the three lords in heaven, now had a demonic counterpart on Earth to match their power, thus the lords of shadow were born. This creates a poetic irony, since the lords of shadow were the ones who created the very demons now driving mankind to extinction. Which makes Gabriel lose all his faith in the Order. Killing Cornell grants him the Lord of the Lycans' Cyclone Boots, which grants him super-speed.

After the Lycans he faces off against the vampires. Killing their champions, Olrox and Brauner, and facing the puppets of Laura, second in command of the vampire race and the only enemy not killed in the game. Until finally he reaches Carmilla, queen of vampires, and second Lord of Shadow. In the dialogue with Carmilla we get the first glimpses of Gabriel future when she states he indeed will be "one of us". Her death grants him the third of the enchanted gear granted the lords of shadow from heaven, her Seraph Shoulders which grants him angel wings.

Intriguingly we learn about a "king of angels" who has been helping Gabriel on his quest. As we all know, the king of angels was the Devil himself, who set all of these events in motion.

Before he heads of to the Land of the Necromancers, Gabriel faces Pan, his guide throughout his journey. Pan sacrifices himself, as the death of a god was needed to proceed to the land of dead. Eventually Gabriel learns that in fact Zobek was the third lord of shadow all along. Zobek had engineered his entire journey. Using the Devil Mask, Zobek made Gabriel kill Marie so that he would end up being focused on revenge, and thus blind to the truth of the quest for the God Mask. He also had Gabriel kill Claudia so that the Black Knight would attack him. Knowing that Gabriel would defeat the golem and receive it's Dark Gauntlet, an evil relic that Zobek can control, stating that 'dark power my dominion'. This is why Gabriel cannot attack Zobek while he gloats about his triumph and manipulation over him. Zobek loathed how each of the Lords of Shadow harbored a piece of the God Mask and refused to use it, and thus Gabriel was the ideal pawn to eliminate them and reunite the pieces, which he did. Later Zobek is burned alive as it turns out Satan was the real mastermind behind the whole plot, implanting knowledge of all the dark arts into Zobek, making him set up the entire charade with Gabriel, and being the real power behind sealing of access to the heavens for all deceased pure spirits.

In the final battle, with the God Mask on Satan Gabriel invokes a divine ritual, the same that gave birth to the Lords of Shadow, purifying Satan while also mysteriously giving Gabriel black wings, another mystery which has yet to be explained. Doing so Gabriel says his farewell to Marie who takes the God Mask with her to heaven.

Ending
After the credits roll by, we see that Zobek is indeed alive and has returned to seek an alliance with Gabriel nearly 1000 years into the future, since Satan's acolytes are preparing for his return and he will in all likelihood come for revenge. We learn that Gabriel is Dracula, the new ruler of darkness and father of vampires, although Zobeks' comment when he calls himself Dracula suggests that he is weakened and was in fact once quite terrible. Gabriel longs to be free of his immortality and be reunited with Marie.

Trivia

 * Gabriel's origins remains unknown. Some have argued him being named Gabriel is no coincidence and hints towards a darker destiny the order knew about.
 * Gabriel's appearance is the result of input from Hideo Kojima. Kojima felt the main character needed to look more "heroic" than his original design implied. Kojima Productions also advised the team on facial animations and character design in general.
 * Gabriel's role as Dracula is very similar to the vampire Alucard from the anime series Hellsing as both are great, powerful vampires who hold contempt for evil, the only difference is that Alucard's methods of killing vampires are far more sadistic compared to Gabriel.
 * It should be interesting to note that Gabriel does not refer himself to Dracula (which means son of the dragon in Romanian), but Dracul, the Dragon. Vlad III Tepes, on which Dracula is based, was the son of Vlad II Dracul, who in turn was named as such for his affiliation with the Order of the Dragon. Whether this fact is intentional or coincidental remains to be seen, but it could imply that Gabriel could be the father of a powerful, evil Vampire. The concept art within the game labels him as Dracula, however.