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"Why live forever if you're not going to live well?"
— Lenore in "Investigators"
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"So now we're not all monsters?"
— Lenore in "What the Night Brings"

Lenore is a major antagonist introduced in Season 3 of the Castlevania animated series. She is a member of Styria's Council of Sisters, where she serves as their diplomat. She is charged to convince Hector to help the Council build an army of night creatures.

She is voiced by Jessica Brown Findlay in the English version of the show.

Background

Lenore is one of the top members of the Council of Sisters and resides in Carmilla's castle in Styria. She is described as being the diplomat of the group and uses her persuasion and seduction skills to obtain what she needs. As a diplomat, she is in charge of making peace with neighboring countries.

Little is known about her past, except that even before becoming a vampire, Lenore "was always a night person" and "never much cared" for daylight, preferring the night to day time.

Plot

Lenore first appeared welcoming Carmilla back after the latter came back from Dracula's castle, along with an enslaved Hector. While discussing how to convince Hector to build an army of night creatures for Carmilla, Lenore proposed her assistance.

She then met Hector in the dungeons and asked to meet him alone. She offered him food through the cell's bars but Hector took the occasion to try and subdue her. This failed as Lenore proved to be way stronger than Hector and beat him down before leaving.

Lenore continued to visit Hector, eventually bringing him food, clothes, shoes, and even allow him to walk with her but with a leash. They started to discuss more and grew closer. As another gift, Lenore transferred Hector to a new, more spacious cell, and offered him books about vampire knowledge.

One night, Lenore brought Hector a blanket and started to seduce him, eventually leading to the two having sex. During the act, Lenore attached a magic ring on Hector's finger after he promised to be hers. The magic ring bound him to be loyal to Lenore, making his night creatures loyal to her in turn. After her success, Lenore gave three more rings to her sisters, stating that it would make the night creatures loyal to them as well. Despite Carmilla's resistance, Lenore demanded Hector be given better accommodations and to allow him full access to the castle.

What Lenore presents to her sisters and what she explains to Hector are two different things - while Lenore names them slave rings when talking to her sisters, to Hector, she denies making him her slave, rather she intends for him to be her pet.

Appearance

Lenore's appearance is that of a slender young woman of shorter stature, with pale skin, ginger red hair, and red eyes. Like all vampires, she has pointed ears and sharp fangs. The sides of her hair are gathered into a small long braid on her back, with a silver hair ornament and a translucent veil attached, covering part of the hair. The rest of the hair is wavy and worn loose. She wears a dark navy blue dress with teal embellishments and trimmings, and partially covered at the shoulders by a fluffy white coat. She has a belt with a bat-like symbol on the buckle and she also wears a silver necklace and studs.

Personality

Lenore is the diplomat of the group and is good at getting others to trust her. While she appears to be kind and honest, she is as shrewd and calculating as her sisters... perhaps even more so. As such, she is not above using underhanded tactics to get results, such as manipulation and gaslighting, which is exemplified when she seduces Hector before making him her slave. She does stay somewhat true to her word, though, as she doesn't return Hector to his cell, but allows him to live in the castle with her and her sisters, although he is still condemned to a life of servitude.

Lenore's is shown to take her job as the Styria Council's diplomat very seriously, as seen during her first interactions with Hector, where she made it viciously clear that she wasn't weak and to never assume that she was an easy target to either manipulate or underestimate due to her innocent appearance, demanding respect as an equal from her prisoner.

Due to her duty as diplomat, Lenore has shown herself to be incredibly tactile, pragmatic and patient when negotiating with others, as seen during her negotiations with Hector, were she made sure to be both precise and patient during the course of her visits in order to carefully dissect his mentality and glean the proper method to manipulate him into doing what she wanted, while insuring at the same time that he remained oblivious to her subtle manipulation and analysis of him.

Lenore also possesses the strong personal belief and value in the practice of commerce, having the firm belief that everyone has to have some sort of desire for whatever action they do, and believes that everyone deserves a proper reward for their services given, as stated by her during her talks with Hector, where she also reveals that she believes this method is the best tool to be used during negotiations, which ensures that everyone involved in the proceedings is content; and believing that other motivational tools, such as faith, are weak tools during negotiations.

It was also noted by her "sisters" that she probably was the kindest and most compassionate of the four, as stated by Carmilla, who mentions that one day, when Lenore found a spider with a broken leg, felt immense pity for it and ravingly tore the castle apart hoping to find the right object small enough to create a splint - an attitude in complete contrast to the typical behavior of a vampire.

However, this sense of compassion and kindness was later revealed to be incredibly warped, as seen where she happily declared that what she always wanted from Hector was for him to be her "pet", as she had come to the conclusion that he simply couldn't handle living on his own without someone controlling him, utterly ignoring his own pleadings for freedom, as she had already set her mind into believing this was what was best for him and what he always wanted and needed all along.

Although twisted, this served to show Lenore's sense of fairness and honor as well. Despite it not being what he initially thought and him essentially being enslaved, Lenore had indeed fulfilled her promise to treat him better than a prisoner and secured him a level of independence, autonomy and freedom within the castle; something that no human within a castle full of vampires could ever obtain.

Unlike her sisters, authors portrayed Lenore as a conflicting character, whose compassion is pitted against common vampire complexes, such as treating humans as inferior. Lenore also seems to have some feeling of insecurity from her sisters making fun of her compassion or not taking her seriously (as she pointed out to Hector often happens due to her being a diplomat). This makes her true intentions harder to read, since she can present a front to her sisters for the sake of tougher appearance, while hiding her true emotions.

One such example is portrayed in The Reparation of My Heart, where Carmilla presented her plan for turning humans into endless supply of blood. To Carmilla's remark about humans being "self replicating food", Lenore appeared rather upset - she clearly didn't feel good about such maniacal attitude, but when grinning Morana noticed her expression, Lenore tried to hide her feelings. Also Lenore's reaction to the story of the spider was exaggeratedly dismissive, since she likely didn't want to admit her compassionate nature to her sisters who were picking on her for it.

Her sisters also consider Lenore a romantic. In I Have a Scheme, Striga responded to Morana's remark about falling in love in a fairy tale castle, that she sounded like Lenore.

Powers and abilities

  • Vampire physiology: Being a vampire, Lenore has several supernatural abilities.
    • Immortality: Like other vampires, Lenore doesn't age.
    • Physical superiority: Lenore possesses superhuman strength and speed.
  • Skilled combatant: Lenore is knowledgeable of very advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques (namely, Martial Arts) which she employs during encounters in conjunction with her other abilities.
  • Bat swarming: Lenore has the ability to transform her body into a swarm of bats, which, besides providing a rapid mean of displacement and the ability to quickly gain a vantage point, also allows her to effortlessly escape an adversary's grasp.
  • Air mimicry: Similarly to Chō, Lenore can transform her body into mist, allowing her to phase through certain obstacles (such as prison bars).

Appearances

Season 3

Season 3
3-01. Bless Your Dead Little Hearts
Yes
3-02. The Reparation of My Heart
Yes
3-03. Investigators
Yes
3-04. I Have a Scheme
Yes
3-05. A Seat of Civilisation and Refinement
No
3-06. The Good Dream
Yes
3-07. Worse Things Than Betrayal
No
3-08. What the Night Brings
Yes
3-09. The Harvest
Yes
3-10. Abandon All Hope
Yes

Gallery

Screenshots

Concept art

Other

Trivia

  • Katie Silvia, the character design supervisor for Season 3, who designed Lenore's character, described her approach as following:
For Lenore, the biggest challenge was she was essentially my art test, and I was going to school at the time and didn't know one thing about character design, so in a panic I bought some books on the subject with next day delivery, drew a lot on Post-its, and then in the end I just followed my heart and threw a lot of shapes and things I love to draw in one design.
For a more production-related answer, I really wanted to capture the pretty, warm, big, droopy doe eyes Ayami Kojima draws on some of her girls.[1]
  • Artbook20

    Succubus from Symphony of the Night by Ayami Kojima

    Lenore's appearance and personality may be based off the Succubus antagonist from the games, especially her appearance in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, as they both have vibrant, full red hair. Katie Silvia stating that she tried to "capture the pretty, warm, big, droopy doe eyes Ayami Kojima draws on some of her girls", suggests stylistic affinity.
    • In the show, Lenore seduces Hector and uses that to trap him as her slave. In Symphony of the Night, the Succubus uses shapeshifting magic to appear as Lisa Ţepeş, Alucard's mother, in order to confuse and kill him. This possible reference is mere speculation, though.
  • Lenore wears a ring on her hand based on the original Carmilla's mask (particularly, to its depiction in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest). Striga and Morana wear one as well, although the former has it on her hair and the latter on her ear.[2]
  • File:Lucy westenra dracula 1992 film.jpg

    Lucy Westenra from the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula.

    It's possible that Lenore was partially inspired by Lucy Westenra from Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Lucy is described there as a young and romantic woman. The book on vampire magic and philosophy that Lenore gave to Hector uses text from Bram Stoker's novel and that paragraph in particular talks about Lucy, which could be a hint.
  • Her name could be inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 narrative poem The Raven, in which "Lenore" is the name of the narrator's lost love.
  • Another possible inspiration for her name is Gottfried Bürger's 1773 Gothic ballad, Lenore, which tells the tale of a young woman named Lenore who is waiting for her fiancé to return from war. When she realizes this will not happen, she begins to quarrel with God. That night, a young soldier –much in the appearance of her lover– appears at her house and convinces her to escape with him on his steed, on a journey from which she'll never return. Although the character that returns from its grave in the poem is not considered to be a vampire, the poem has been very influential in vampire literature.
    • They also could be connected since Lenore's concept design references "Princess in Mourning" and her namesake in the ballad is mourning her lost love.
  • Lenore could also be inspired by the Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen's eponymous fairy tale. Lenore's concept design references "Winter Princess", which could be a hint. The Snow Queen also holds Kai captive, which resembles Hector's story.

References

  1. The Blood, Sweat and Vampires of Anime Castlevania - Vfxvoice, September 22, 2020.
  2. @NXOnNeltflix - Twitter, April 7, 2020.
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