# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  Dracula (Netflix Castlevania) VS The Scooby Gang (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

## ArlEammon

Okay, so this is just after Season 7, after the finale. Dracula appears in the evacuated town of Sunnydale to eradicate the Human population of surrounding population centers, by turning them all into vampires. He personally Buffy has a premonition about Dracula, and so she divines that a new, great threat to them is in town. So the Scooby Gang gather together to give Dracula a proper fight. 
This Dracula seems to be on a level never seen by the Scoobies, but Willow might be able to even things out. Assuming that the small army of Scoobies reliably get together, who wins?
To be clear, everyone on this list is assisting Buffy against Dracula except for those that can't be there, such as Tara.

That's right. ALL Scoobies. 

https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Scooby_Gang#Scoobies

Rupert Giles, and Willow are very powerful magic users. Spike, and Angel are powerful vampires in their own right, and now Buffy has back up from other Slayers AND a werewolf. I don't know what her younger sister can do, though I know she has offensive magic powers as well. Even Xander might be able to help if he's inventive enough. Dracula though, is a great vampire AND very skillful. He is magic resistant AND also a very powerful black magician. If for some reason The Scoobies can easily overwhelm him in a stomp, you can assume he has his night creatures. (But none of his vampire generals. That would be a slaughter against the Scoobies.)

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## Delicious Taffy

Okay, so Drac gets curbstomped. He got taken out by one really tough normies, one pretty good caster, and one half-human vampire son. Buffy, Willow, and Spike could probably take him themselves, let alone all those other characters. Anything past that is getting into double-speculation territory. If he's got his minions and they've got minion-fighting backup, it's kind of just two forces negating each other, since some random townies with lightly-salted pointy stuff can fight the nightmooks.

Now, granted, it'd be a hell of a season finale, but it doesn't taste especially harder than most of what Buffy and pals have dealt with in that tier.

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## ArlEammon

> Okay, so Drac gets curbstomped. He got taken out by one really tough normies, one pretty good caster, and one half-human vampire son. Buffy, Willow, and Spike could probably take him themselves, let alone all those other characters. Anything past that is getting into double-speculation territory. If he's got his minions and they've got minion-fighting backup, it's kind of just two forces negating each other, since some random townies with lightly-salted pointy stuff can fight the nightmooks.
> 
> Now, granted, it'd be a hell of a season finale, but it doesn't taste especially harder than most of what Buffy and pals have dealt with in that tier.


Could anyone other than Willow defeat Death? Death seems kind of like he's out of some of their leagues.

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## tyckspoon

> Okay, so Drac gets curbstomped. He got taken out by one really tough normies, one pretty good caster, and one half-human vampire son. Buffy, Willow, and Spike could probably take him themselves, let alone all those other characters. Anything past that is getting into double-speculation territory. If he's got his minions and they've got minion-fighting backup, it's kind of just two forces negating each other, since some random townies with lightly-salted pointy stuff can fight the nightmooks.
> 
> Now, granted, it'd be a hell of a season finale, but it doesn't taste especially harder than most of what Buffy and pals have dealt with in that tier.


.. so.. I hope Netflix Castlevania is old enough that the statute of limitations on spoilers is expired?

Because I feel bound to well ackchully this - Dracula was -absolutely stomping- that fight until he realized he was about to kill his own son and entered an existential crisis. The crew didn't so much beat Dracula as Dracula stopped fighting them; almost the entirety of the first season is Dracula's initial fury fading and him realizing that the whole thing is just fundamentally pointless. At the end, he lets the Castlevania protagonists kill him not because they overpowered him but because it lets him finally find a way to rest. This should not be taken as the high point of Dracula's strength if he is meant to be seriously fighting the Scooby army.

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## Giggling Ghast

> Because I feel bound to well ackchully this - Dracula was -absolutely stomping- that fight until he realized he was about to kill his own son and entered an existential crisis.


His feats during that fight include:

-Blocking Alucards sword with two fingers

-Tanking Syphas flame spell, which is aimed directly at his face

-Showing absolutely no reaction to Trevor (a superhuman Belmont) punching him repeatedly, not even flinching

-Surviving a blow from the Morning Star, which can explode vampires with a single hit

-Summoning a massive fireball that requires Sypha, Trevor and Alucard to repel

And this is Dracula at his weakest, as he hadnt fed in some time.

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## Delicious Taffy

Oh wait yeah, I was mixing up like 5 different fights. Dracula's probably gonna have a much easier time than I'd first estimated.

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## The Patterner

> Okay, so Drac gets curbstomped. He got taken out by one really tough normies, one pretty good caster, and one half-human vampire son. Buffy, Willow, and Spike could probably take him themselves, let alone all those other characters. Anything past that is getting into double-speculation territory. If he's got his minions and they've got minion-fighting backup, it's kind of just two forces negating each other, since some random townies with lightly-salted pointy stuff can fight the nightmooks.
> 
> Now, granted, it'd be a hell of a season finale, but it doesn't taste especially harder than most of what Buffy and pals have dealt with in that tier.






> .. so.. I hope Netflix Castlevania is old enough that the statute of limitations on spoilers is expired?
> 
> Because I feel bound to well ackchully this - Dracula was -absolutely stomping- that fight until he realized he was about to kill his own son and entered an existential crisis. The crew didn't so much beat Dracula as Dracula stopped fighting them; almost the entirety of the first season is Dracula's initial fury fading and him realizing that the whole thing is just fundamentally pointless. At the end, he lets the Castlevania protagonists kill him not because they overpowered him but because it lets him finally find a way to rest. This should not be taken as the high point of Dracula's strength if he is meant to be seriously fighting the Scooby army.


I'd like to add that Belmonte is not just a really tough normie, he goes toe-to-toe with the toughest of vampires and wins. I'd say he is close to Buffy all by himself.

But, I do think the Scooby could win, they would just need to weaken Dracula first (kinda like in the season five Glory fight, but much, much harder).

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## lord_khaine

Without plot armor this isnt even a contest for Dracula. 
The speed/strenght he shows off is unfortunately just in another category.

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## ArlEammon

> Without plot armor this isnt even a contest for Dracula. 
> The speed/strenght he shows off is unfortunately just in another category.


Hrm even with the whole small army of Scoobies? This isn't just a five man gang this time around.

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## Thales

> Could anyone other than Willow defeat Death? Death seems kind of like he's out of some of their leagues.


Death seems actually significantly weaker than Dracula. He's physically a lot larger, but he's pretty explicitly fighting while temporarily juiced up on the life energy from the reclaimed pendant, whereas Dracula is fighting at the nadir of his power. Plus, his master plan is to basically resurrect Dracula to kill everyone rather than do it himself. Granted, he's a pretty lazy creature, but I think it's also clear that he just doesn't have the power to wreak large-scale destruction in a sustainable way.

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## ArlEammon

> Death seems actually significantly weaker than Dracula. He's physically a lot larger, but he's pretty explicitly fighting while temporarily juiced up on the life energy from the reclaimed pendant, whereas Dracula is fighting at the nadir of his power. Plus, his master plan is to basically resurrect Dracula to kill everyone rather than do it himself. Granted, he's a pretty lazy creature, but I think it's also clear that he just doesn't have the power to wreak large-scale destruction in a sustainable way.


That's true, but what I'm saying is it took quite a bit of work to destroy him.

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## lord_khaine

> Hrm even with the whole small army of Scoobies? This isn't just a five man gang this time around.


Additional numbers hardly seems relevant. People already pointed out Draculas feats. 
Nothing they can dish out is enough to phase him. 
Possibly Sypha or Alucard alone is enough to beat the Scoobies.
Syphna's magic is -exceptionally- violent.

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## awa

also at least partial based on the nature of their medium Draculas speed feats blow any of the scooby gangs out of the water, and the same is true for his opponents. Nothing buffy or spike does comes close to the kind of mobility Belmont has.

I mean with the right plot armor it could go either way but none of the scoobys are durable enough to take a hit or fast enough to prevent him from just flying it and ganking someone.

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## Ramza00

> Additional numbers hardly seems relevant. People already pointed out Draculas feats. 
> Nothing they can dish out is enough to phase him. 
> Possibly Sypha or Alucard alone is enough to beat the Scoobies.
> Syphna's magic is -exceptionally- violent.


I agree, the more interesting matchup would be the Castlevania three in Sunnydale against the Scoobies (with 1990s dress instead of fictional 1476 garb), or vice versa where the Scoobies are hunting the three in one of the Castlevania towns like the village of Danesti, the cursed metropolis of Târgoviște, Braila by the river, or Draculas Castle.

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## Kyberwulf

Yeah, Dracula wins no contest. People seem to over estimate how powerful slayers are. 

Before Buffy, they never really last that long. The only reason Buffy lasted as long as she did was plot armor. Most of the people in her crew would get slaughtered by the minions of Dracula. 

Not only that, Buffy wouldn't even care about the threat. That's her M.O.. She gets a waning something evil is coming. She lets it do whatever until something goes after someone she cares about. She then goes and fight them, gets curbedstomped gets saved. then comes back. Without Plot armor, Buffy is really nothing.

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## Giggling Ghast

> Plus, his master plan is to basically resurrect Dracula to kill everyone rather than do it himself.


To be fair, Death says he cant lead armies to exterminate humanity because its not part of whatever function he serves in the grand scheme of things.

Death likely has a limited capacity to affect the world; he can kill a person here and there, but hes mostly restricted to acting through proxies.

He is also kind of a prick.

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## Ramza00

> He is also kind of a prick.


I loved his fabulous anti-charisma and the climax while playing the role of Varney the Vampire; who was in those Victorian Penny dreadfuls such as the Feast of Blood.  Varney is the origin of many vampire tropes like the two fangs in the neck and others.  Also historians think Varney is what inspired the metaphor of Marx calling capital a Vampire which extracts its life from the labors of the living.

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## lord_khaine

> To be fair, Death says he cant lead armies to exterminate humanity because its not part of whatever function he serves in the grand scheme of things.


He wasnt also directly Death. Just a spirit of some sort feasting upon the death of things.
And a pretty short sighted/dumb one at that.

His goal should have been to encourage farming innovation ect.
Help the overall population size grow. Since well.
10 x humans means 10 times annual deaths.

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## Ramza00

> He wasnt also directly Death. Just a spirit of some sort feasting upon the death of things.
> And a pretty short sighted/dumb one at that.
> 
> His goal should have been to encourage farming innovation ect.
> Help the overall population size grow. Since well.
> 10 x humans means 10 times annual deaths.


We do not know the metaphysics of how he enjoys the taste of death, since he preceded humans, and is immortal unless killed with magic.
Likewise he is able to AU travel in the infinite corridor (if I recall correctly this is a Michael Moorcock invention in his Eternal Champion series.  Moorcock and other New Wave Sci Fi and Fantasy writers is where we get Law and Chaos axis for it was deconstructing Tolkien and taking some inspiration from Milton.)

Thus Death can AU travel to a different world after he caused all his death and has feasted.  Likewise he gets more powerful the more he feasts.  We hear this diegetically from Death himself as part of his plan, but we also see him final Villian transform after he eats the Death Magic focus.

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## GloatingSwine

> Yeah, Dracula wins no contest. People seem to over estimate how powerful slayers are. 
> 
> Before Buffy, they never really last that long. The only reason Buffy lasted as long as she did was plot armor. Most of the people in her crew would get slaughtered by the minions of Dracula. 
> 
> Not only that, Buffy wouldn't even care about the threat. That's her M.O.. She gets a waning something evil is coming. She lets it do whatever until something goes after someone she cares about. She then goes and fight them, gets curbedstomped gets saved. then comes back. Without Plot armor, Buffy is really nothing.


I reckon the scoobs could probably take Godbrand, but he did have the brains of a particularly unimpressive potato.

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## Ramza00

Can the Scoobs take down Issac? 🤔

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## ArlEammon

> Can the Scoobs take down Issac? 🤔


Isaac's the Devil Forge master right? I definitely think so.

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## lord_khaine

Depends on how long he has been able to spend on a graveyard xD
Isaac dont need many corpses to spiral out of control.

Hmm. But at the same time. Seems unlikely the army would not be able to handle him.

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## Delicious Taffy

He kinda curb-stomped Carmilla with just one Stand, and she seemed pretty tough. That whole ordeal at the tower was also damn impressive. Isaac might fall to superior numbers, but if he gets even just one good demon, he'll wreck shop in pretty quick order.

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## ArlEammon

> He kinda curb-stomped Carmilla with just one Stand, and she seemed pretty tough. That whole ordeal at the tower was also damn impressive. Isaac might fall to superior numbers, but if he gets even just one good demon, he'll wreck shop in pretty quick order.


I don't recall Isaac or Carmilla fighting Sypha at any point. Now Giles and Willow aren't Sypha, but both of them together might be enough to take on Isaac together. A whole army of Scoobies seems a tad overkill.

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## KillianHawkeye

Didn't Buffy already defeat Dracula in season 5?

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## HolyDraconus

> Didn't Buffy already defeat Dracula in season 5?


Yeah, she did. With her scythe and end series abilities she can surprisingly take out most of the castlevania crew up to Death without any real issues. If shes allowed the full scooby gang, which does tag A.I., between them she should be able to at least severely damage if not outright beat castlevanias Dracula. Remember that shes past the point at the end series of speed blitzing demons that can outrun bullets and chunking them through pillars of concrete.

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## animorte

> Yeah, she did. With her scythe and end series abilities she can surprisingly take out most of the castlevania crew up to Death without any real issues. If shes allowed the full scooby gang, which does tag A.I., between them she should be able to at least severely damage if not outright beat castlevanias Dracula. Remember that shes past the point at the end series of speed blitzing demons that can outrun bullets and chunking them through pillars of concrete.


Ive been keeping up with this thread because Castlevania was sweet and I loved the first season basically being a D&D party meeting up.

This caught my attention though. I never got through much of Buffy, but shes really all that and a bag of chips? Impressive.

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## lord_khaine

> I don't recall Isaac or Carmilla fighting Sypha at any point. Now Giles and Willow aren't Sypha, but both of them together might be enough to take on Isaac together.


They dont hold a candle to the degree of swift and brutal evocation magic Sypha is able to pull off. 




> This caught my attention though. I never got through much of Buffy, but shes really all that and a bag of chips? Impressive.


No she isnt all that. Her universe generally operates on a lower scale of power. 
So she dont need nearly as much of it to wreck vampires.

Castlevania meanwhile is an.. i might call it anime.
So in turn its not held back by a special effect budget. 
The fight against Dracula's generals illustrates that nicely.

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## Eldan

> Ive been keeping up with this thread because Castlevania was sweet and I loved the first season basically being a D&D party meeting up.
> 
> This caught my attention though. I never got through much of Buffy, but shes really all that and a bag of chips? Impressive.


I mean, within the limits of it being a 90s TV show with limited budget and stunt choreography, yes. She kills several world-ending threats and gods.

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## animorte

> No she isnt all that. Her universe generally operates on a lower scale of power. 
> So she dont need nearly as much of it to wreck vampires.





> I mean, within the limits of it being a 90s TV show with limited budget and stunt choreography, yes. She kills several world-ending threats and gods.


Yes makes sense. Within any story, the hero is only as strong as they need to be.

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## Eldan

It's also that we're kind of told she's stronger than what's shown on screen. She fights a lot of guys in rubber masks and the very occasional CG monster. We're told that she's incredibly strong and fast, but for the most part is still played by a tiny young woman who's pretty limber and good at gymnastics, not a superhero.

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## Ramza00

> It's also that we're kind of told she's stronger than what's shown on screen. She fights a lot of guys in rubber masks and the very occasional CG monster. We're told that she's incredibly strong and fast, but for the most part is still played by a tiny young woman who's pretty limber and good at gymnastics, not a superhero.


And the uncanny dissonance between the telling and the showingand just letting go and having fun with the showingis that camp?

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## lord_khaine

> It's also that we're kind of told she's stronger than what's shown on screen. She fights a lot of guys in rubber masks and the very occasional CG monster. We're told that she's incredibly strong and fast, but for the most part is still played by a tiny young woman who's pretty limber and good at gymnastics, not a superhero.


Well she can also be incredibly strong and fast, especially for someone her size, and still fall short of the task.
Since most of the things she murder is just a danger to other humans.

While Castlevanias Dracula is a challenge for a mid-tier Marvel hero, with his combination of strength, speed, toughness and vampire/magic tricks.

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## ArlEammon

> Well she can also be incredibly strong and fast, especially for someone her size, and still fall short of the task.
> Since most of the things she murder is just a danger to other humans.
> 
> While Castlevanias Dracula is a challenge for a mid-tier Marvel hero, with his combination of strength, speed, toughness and vampire/magic tricks.


Eh. . . High Tier MCU hero, imho.

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## BloodSquirrel

> It's also that we're kind of told she's stronger than what's shown on screen. She fights a lot of guys in rubber masks and the very occasional CG monster. We're told that she's incredibly strong and fast, but for the most part is still played by a tiny young woman who's pretty limber and good at gymnastics, not a superhero.


That's not really the biggest problem. The biggest one is that it's the rule, rather than the exception, that a regular named human character can hold their own or even win against your average unnamed vampire, and Buffy isn't that much stronger than a regular vampire. Hell, Buffy's friends were even able to kill the ubervamps at the end of the show. It isn't just that the show doesn't have the special effects to pull of MCU-level feats, it's that the show actively avoids showing that kind of gap between a regular human and a slayer. 

It's a deliberate creative choice which makes sense when the premise of the show is "High school student and her friends fight vampires" and not "Superhero team fights alien invasion".

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## HolyDraconus

Thinking more on this, if we are allowing the canon comics that go up to season 12, pretty sure Buffy and the scoobies have enough fire power to take out well fed Dracula. Without budget limits that the show imposed, a lot of what was implied was actually shown, like how she can flip cars and dodge bullets. I think the only real downer though is Willow was never reverted to Dark Willow (who was a global threat at one point so yeah, she can solo Sypha), and I think Spike is permanently dead. Though Angel more than makes up for the loss of a seasoned vampire slayer slayer.

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## ArlEammon

> Thinking more on this, if we are allowing the canon comics that go up to season 12, pretty sure Buffy and the scoobies have enough fire power to take out well fed Dracula. Without budget limits that the show imposed, a lot of what was implied was actually shown, like how she can flip cars and dodge bullets. I think the only real downer though is Willow was never reverted to Dark Willow (who was a global threat at one point so yeah, she can solo Sypha), and I think Spike is permanently dead. Though Angel more than makes up for the loss of a seasoned vampire slayer slayer.


Hrm I don't know. I haven't seen the show in 20 years and never read the comics lol.

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