 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappy, and if you're a fan of this channel, then it's no secret that you're into bad boys. And there's no bigger bad boy than Strahd von Zarovich, the Dracula clone that puts the suck in Bloodsucker. And if you're a DnD aficionado, you probably know all about his backstory. He loved a girl who didn't love her back, became a fearless vampire killer, and his new form caused his love interest to eat herself off the balcony of Ravenloft Castle. It's a love story as old as time, but is it really though? There are those that think Strahd is a sympathetic character, someone who we should feel pity for, either because his wrongdoings were outmatched by the punishment that he was given, or that his wrongdoings just weren't that bad in the first place. Luckily, over time I've been seeing less and less people think that this is the truth, but I'm now seeing a new phenomenon of people who do agree that Strahd is evil, but really don't have a reason why they're just following the mold. So here is a new video from your favorite DnD Talkabouter, giving out all the reasons why, yeah, Strahd really is just the worst, so that you can then take my talking points and pretend that they're yours. As always, keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion, so if you ever had a vampire OC when you were a teenager in 2009, feel free to cringe at that memory however you want. But with that out of the way, let's begin. So if we want to talk about Strahd, then we have to talk about the lore crafted around him. The story of Ravenloft is told through the adventures that take place within the titular realm of the Shadowfell, most recently with the ever-popular Curse of Strahd. And while most people who come to play said adventure, or even most people who take a look at the cover art, can tell you that Strahd is a huge dick, the length of his dickishness is generally underplayed due to most people just not really getting it. In the adventure, heroes are called from their realm to the world of Ravenloft, where they are tortured, both physically and mentally, via being forced to survive in a dystopian horror movie world. Where the monsters are the winners of the story, and the ones who survive are the unlucky ones who get to live another day. Strahd's role in the story is being the man at the top, the leader of the evil, and the reason why all this madness is festering. Because make no mistake, he could fix it all if he wanted to, but he just really doesn't want to. All he wants to do is, among other more spoilery things, bring people into his devil's carnival and watch as they trip into every booby trap. This is because he is a sad man, moping in his self-loathing after the previously mentioned yeeting of his only love, Tatiana. The problem is, he really caused that yeeting in the first place. See, Strahd may have loved Tatiana, but Tatiana loved Sergei, Strahd's brother, because he was more beautiful and also not middle-aged like Strahd. Strahd's perfectly normal reaction to this was to make a deal with some dark powers, kill his brother, and become a monster, so that Tatiana would love him again. Because, you know, vampires work so well in romance. Regardless, the simple fact of the matter is that Strahd is so absorbed in the fact that he lost Tatiana and wants to get her back that he is in complete denial about A, any wrongdoing that caused her death, and B, the idea that she had any romantic feelings for him in the first place. So, let's get the creepiness and lustful suicide part out of the way early. Strahd's not a romantic. He's a sociopath. He never liked Tatiana for anything other than her beauty because, let's be fair here, Strahd is a creepy dude and she knew it, so it's reasonable to assume that she kept her distance. And Cliffs do give a lot of distance. Now, I've also seen people defend Strahd by saying that he's a tortured soul, a martyr for his own misdeeds, a good guy that just wanted love and the world is punishing him for it. But the reality is that he's just a host onto himself. Strahd isn't tortured by the dark powers based off of nothing. One of the key features of the Shadowfell is that realms like Ravenloft are created to punish one person for their cardinal sin. In Strahd's case, his lust for Tatiana. The truth is that Strahd isn't really trapped in Ravenloft so much as he has been given a situation where he never wants to leave. In Ravenloft, people who die reincarnate into a new body so that they can be miserable all over again. So Tatiana will just keep coming back for Strahd to try his nice guy routine and ultimately fail and have his private messages posted on Reddit. Because he thinks he can try again, he does, and his self-centered attitude is what brings him to never try to leave. Even though, per the book, he knows a way to get out, but the book also says that he'll never take it. He'll just always decide that in the end, he is the knight and he'll give up on the whole plan not because the dark powers are forcing him to stay, but just because they know how high he can jump and they built an exit ladder a few inches higher than that. Now, some people think that this means you can try to reason with Strahd, but this is the pitfall that starts the whole conversation of whether Strahd is a good guy or not. Yes, it's true that with a lot of self-reflection, Strahd could see that his problems are the only thing keeping him here and then he could pack up and go somewhere else, but much like your uncle on Facebook, he's been around for so long that the concept of right and wrong has just disintegrated in favor of what can I get away with and what can I not. And being the ultimate master of an entire realm of darkness, he can get away with a whole lot. Strahd finds himself to be completely beyond redemption because, well, he just sort of decided that. And because he's accepted himself as an edgy loner punk, he needs everyone else to understand how much of a punk he is too. So his MO is to lure people into a false sense of security, convince them that he isn't really all that bad, and then right when they think they can redeem him, he tears off the mask and murders their puppy in front of them and then brings the puppy to life to have it murder you. That is who Strahd is, an irredeemable bastard who requires complete control over literally every single insignificant thing in the world around him, or else he'll go a little crazy and start sending maidens plummeting to their deaths. To give an example in my own game, of course, of Strahd, the party had just arrived in a campsite with a bunch of Vistani people near the beginning of the game, and while they were getting their bearings and asking questions about why everything was using the inkwell filter on Instagram, who would show up but Strahd himself, the final boss of the game, the monster on the cover of the book, showing up at the beginning of the adventure and acting like a completely normal dude by just sitting at a log and asking for some wine. The characters were confused and scared, but Strahd remained calm, taking pity on the lost adventurers and asking if any of them would like to go home. Of course, he didn't want peer pressure over taking the group, so he passed out notes and asked them to write their answer there. One player in a fit of defiance threw the note into the fire, to which Strahd, ever the charmer, said, That was very rude, and you do not want to be rude to your host, you should retrieve the note from the fire. To which the player jumped straight into the pit and burned himself getting out. Once all the players had passed Strahd their notes, he looked them over and then said, It appears you have all decided to stay. Splendid. I shall see to it that you'll stay in Borovia. He's a pleasant one. He then thanked the Vistani for the wine and turned to leave. But as he did, one of the players broke down, pulled out their bow and aimed at Strahd. But before they could loose their arrow, another player tackled them and held them down. Strahd kept walking down the trail, completely unshaken by the would-be attack. As the archer muttered, You bastard. I just wanted to leave. Now, I got that idea from a Reddit post that for the life of me, I cannot find again. But holy hell did it establish the true nature of who Strahd is. Cold-hearted, sociopathic, imposing, and most of all, manipulating. These are not good traits. Strahd is not a good person. And any semblance of a good thing that he looks like he's trying to do is a lie. It's fascinating to watch him pull these crazy chess moves and dick around with everybody. And there's nothing wrong with liking a villain for being an irredeemable asshole. But at the end of the day, you have to accept that they are an asshole with no redeeming qualities and that trying to find hidden messages within their behavior that make them secretly a little better so that you don't feel bad about liking them is really missing the point of these bad guys. At some point, you have to throw up your hands and say, You know what? Maybe Strahd isn't a sympathetic character after all. Maybe I'm just a simp. But then I'm about to do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to leave a like, comment, subscribe, check out my social media in the description below, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can keep dunking on old men who flake up in the sunlight. But yeah, Davy out.