Golem

The Golem is an enemy from many games spanning across the Castlevania series. Like other monsters in the series, its role in each game ranges from boss threats to nonexistent. Castlevania: Judgment features a playable Golem who has obtained self-awareness and can be considered a character in his own right.

Lore
The Golem was concieved long ago in Jewish folklore. During the Middle Ages, it was seen as a symbol of one's own great holiness and power to create a Golem, and many prominent Rabbis were rumored to have actually created a number of Golems. In the making of a Golem, according to yet more folklore, is to build it from the dust of the earth, much like how God made Adam. There are multiple ways to activate a Golem:


 * By inscribing one of the many names of God into its forehead.
 * By inscribing one of the many names of God on a slip of paper, and placing it in the Golem's mouth. (Note: This is similar to how a Jiang-Shi is activated in Chinese myth, except that the paper is inscribed with Imperial decree and nailed upon the forehead.)
 * By inscribing a specific religious command using one's own blood on calfskin, and placing that into its mouth, a method that sounds suspiciously occultic rather than religious.
 * By inscribing the Hebrew word, Emet ("life") on its forehead.

It is always the wisest decision to never give the Golem the ability to speak. If it has the ability to speak, then the Golem is given a soul; and if it is given a soul, the Golem becomes anarchistic and cunning--in a sense, the Golem becomes a wicked, foul creature. Another good idea is to always allow the Golem to rest on the Sabbath (Sundays), or else the Golem will go berserk and become destructive of everything around it. If either one of these mistakes are made, or if for any other reason, there are also a few ways meant to deactivate the Golem.


 * If activated using the word Emet, one must erase the "E" to form the word Met ("truth").
 * If activated using the calfskin parchment, the parchment must be removed from its mouth.
 * If activated using the slip of paper, the paper must be removed and destroyed.

In all definitions, the Golem is meant to be a servant to the one who created it. While there are many forms of the Golem throughout the Castlevania series, they all really stay true to the original myths surrounding the Golem. Frankenstein's Monster, a recurring boss monster in the series, can also be considered a Golem--except that he is formed from corpses while the Golem is traditionally dust and earth. Both prove to be some of the most difficult characters in the series.

Castlevania: Bloodlines
In this game, the Golem is featured for the first official time as the boss of Stage 2, which takes place in Greece. After defeating the warlock who was using his magic to force the waters of Atlantis to rise to threatening heights, the player rides the tide down to the bottom of the Atlantic palace and comes face-to-face with the warlock's creation: a Golem! Its body has multiple layers that the player must break in order to do damage to a red orb that acts as its head (And, therefore, its weakpoint). Its attack are mainly just pummeling the ceiling to cause rocks to drop from the ceiling and trying to slug the player from a point-blank distance. After the Golem is defeated, it raises its fist, as if to threaten that it will someday return...

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Golem appears in two (or three, if you count the boss Iron Golem) forms in the game. The first is the Golem enemy, which slowly walks around. When damaged enough, its lower body (his legs) fall off, and he slowly crawls toward the player. The second is the Golem DSS card, which represents the element of earth, thus creating earth effects when combined with other cards, such as earthquakes. When the Uranus card is obtained, the player can summon the Golem, which makes stones come out from the ground as the Golem emerges, doing extreme damage to weaker enemies.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Harmony of Dissonance was famous for its numerous boss fights, and the Golem joins the large cast of boss monsters. It functions much like it did in Bloodlines, even so far as to have the same red orb that acts as its weakpoint. However, it has a few new attacks such as actually spewing a cascade of rock shards.

Aria of Sorrow
In this game, the Golem is relegated to being just a very strong enemy. As a matter of fact, this time around, it seems to have invited its cousins to help the other legions of Dracula's minions. There are many more Golems than just the familiar stone giant (Flesh Golem, Iron Golem): one of which, made of iron, is nearly impossible to defeat without use of the Killer Mantle soul because its defense is ridiculously high. While they aren't bosses, the Golems make nuisances of themselves all the same. Regardless of their high defense, all Golems (except the Big Golem) can be destroyed with one hit of the Killer Mantle. This weakness also makes obtaining their Souls much easier.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
In perhaps its most memorable role, the Golem is one of the bosses Leon must defeat in order to open the door to Walter's Keep. It is worth noting here that during the Golem's level, Leon must find a stone letter "E" and bring to the boss room, and insert it into an epitaph that has "Met" written on it. This is one of the actual ways of activating a Golem (Writing Emet on its person). However, the Golem does not seem ready to obey the man who brought it to life, and attacks Leon. It is basically a bruiser boss: many of its attacks consist of throwing Leon around the room or crushing him beneath its own earthy presence. It also possesses the red crystal, although this time under his arm. When defeated, as usual, it once again returns to the peace of the earth.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
They are featured here the same as in the first Sorrow game, except that their sprites are redrawn to fit the more-demanding graphical capabilities of the Nintendo DS.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Appearing in the Buried Chamber, the Golem from Portrait of Ruin is a simple enemy who resists to Jonathan's sub-weapons.

Castlevania: Judgment
Golem has been confirmed to be a playable character in the 3D fighting game Castlevania: Judgment for the Nintendo Wii. His design seems to be a mixture of both the Golem and Frankenstein's Monster. He's revealed in his story mode that the Time rift the game takes place in has granted Golem a measure of sentience, which he uses in an attempt to make himself fully human. However, only in the rift can his sentience be maintained, and the rift would doom humanity if he remains extant; as such, Golem sacrifices his chance at humanity to help seal the rift and save mankind. After Golem mends the rift in time, he loses sentience as said before. He was later destroyed by a vampire hunter. His theme is "Tower of Dolls", a song from Castlevania: Chronicles.

Judgment Quotes

 * Short description: An artificial being that has an unnatural soul.
 * Before fighting: "Me fight to live."
 * Before fighting: "Fighting bad. But now must fight."
 * Before fighting: "Me not made to lose."
 * Before fighting a villain: "Me not slave. Me want freedom."
 * After winning: "Me not want to fight. Do not want."
 * After winning: "Now me think for self. Me happy."
 * After winning: "Where is place for me?"
 * After winning: "Me just want to live. Why you stop me?"
 * After fighting Cornell: "Curse good. Just wanted learn curse."
 * After fighting Grant: "Love is fighting? Then me understand love."
 * After fighting Carmilla: "You say me can be human. Me want to believe."
 * After fighting Death: "Me soul real. Me happy."
 * After fighting Aeon: "Now me no afraid."

Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth
In The Adventure ReBirth, the area boss of Stage 4 is an enemy that resembles a Golem. He is capable of smashing, jumping into the air and landing (creating a shockwave), and summoning several mini-golems which float around.

Iron Golem
Often the enemy with the highest defense in any given Castlevania game.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Iron Golem is the third boss in Circle of the Moon, and guards the Kick Boots. He advances slowly, occasionally pausing to pound the ground, which releases gears from the ceiling. Iron Golem also heals himself, and fires a spark that causes massive damage. He is one of the easiest bosses in the game.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
In Aria of Sorrow, Iron Golem has 9999 HP and all attacks will only do 1-2 HP of damage. Using the Killer Mantle Soul will swap his 9999 HP with his 1 MP while simultaneously delivering 1 HP of damage, thus killing him in one hit.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Almost all attacks are reduced to 1 HP damage, but as he has only 50 HP, he is substantially easier to kill than his Aria of Sorrow counterpart. His attacks are a punch, a kick and fire breath. To defeat him easily, use Puppet Master or Bat Company to get behind him, as he can't turn around. Defeating this enemy can also be easier if using a weapon that hits quickly, such as the kaiser knuckle, or the nunchakus.

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
He has high defense, but still takes decent damage. Electric-based attacks (such as Chain Lightning) can kill him fairly quickly.

Flesh Golem
Essentially a large glob of flesh given life. It drops no useful items and does not give out a lot of experience. It is also somewhat weaker than its relatives, having a weakness to slashing weapons such as swords. But his soul is usefull for restoring hp, because of his soul you can eat rotten meat and spoiled milk and restore health instead of decreasing it.

Big Golem
Big Golem appears in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in the Dance Hall as the game's 4th boss, and later in the Underground Waterway as a regular enemy. It behaves exactly like the other Golem enemies you can encounter in the game, being that they move slow and are easy to avoid. However, in Big Golem's case, you can't avoid him. He only has two mentionable attacks in the entire fight.

The first attack is where he decides to thrust the palm of his hand at you. Normally, the regular Golem enemies kick to attack in this game, save for Iron Golem, but he has to use this attack because of his size.

The second attack is unique only to Big Golem. He opens up his mouth and spits rocks out at you. While not as devastating as the arm thrust attack, it covers some distance between the two of you, so make sure you try to avoid it.

After you defeat this boss the first time, you get the Skeleton Blaze soul. It allows you to slide underneath places, which helps to unlock the Inner Quarters area. Later on, you can acquire his soul. It behaves much like the Creaking Skull and Cagnazzo souls, mainly because it's a Guardian Soul, and it supports the battle from behind you. It is not as powerful as the Cagnazzo soul, but it is more powerful than the Creaking Skull soul. However, it doesn't cover as much distance as the Creaking Skull soul, so you may want to equip the soul depending on the range you're fighting in.

Koronot
Koranot spelled backwards is "ton a rok", this can be interpreted as "ton of rock", which is an accurate description of this boss enemy.