Carrie Fernandez

Carrie Fernandez is a heroine from the Castlevania series. She appears as a playable character in Castlevania and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, both of which were published for the Nintendo 64 in the late nineties.

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Carrie Fernandez, a descendant of the powerful witch Sypha Belnades, was born in 1840 into a family of Spanish immigrants who were traveling through Eastern Europe. The patriarch of the Fernandez clan fell under the influence of Dracula. They were slowly wiped out through him or by the people who feared them. Many were executed for showing talents of witchcraft (including Carrie's parents). That memory stayed with her and led her to grow bitter toward adults and God. Though she became an orphan, she was adopted by a kind adoptive mother. Her strange talents came to her foster mother's attention and a search through records uncovered her link to the Fernandez family. As Dracula's baleful influence once again permeated Europe, the people of Wallachia grew uneasy and fearful. Dracula's minions had begun to send waves of forces into nearby villages. When they came to Carrie's village, the girl's adoptive mother selflessly protected her and was killed in the process. Carrie's anguish upon witnessing her mother's death awakened her latent magic powers, allowing her to destroy the creatures and evade capture.

Embittered and disillusioned by the wanton murder of her foster mother, as well as the murder of her original parents, Carrie turned her back completely on God and adults. Two years later, after hearing rumors of the reappearance of Castlevania, Carrie intrepidly traveled to Dracula's stronghold. During her travel, she met two holy knights, Henry Oldrey and Reinhardt Schneider, and she joined them in their quest to stop Dracula, having resolved to use her magic powers to vanquish him and his minions, and thus destroy his evil. Carrie began her quest vowing that "Whatever awaits, I have no regrets!".

Carrie uses her magic to fight through dangerous locales and overcome the many monsters Dracula's minions placed in her way. She is joined in her quest by Reinhardt Schneider and Henry Oldrey. In her journey to the castle, she encounters several helpful people: the unwilling vampire Rosa, who gives her advice, and Charlie Vincent, an arrogant vampire hunter who gives her the key to the Villa's archives. She also meets Renon, a demon of ambiguous affiliation who offers to sell her useful items during her quest.

Two characters prove to be particularly important in her story. One is the young boy Malus, who has seemingly gotten lost in the Villa's Garden Maze after Dracula's demons attacked his family. Carrie helps the boy escape from the maze. After leading him to safety, Carrie doesn't anticipate seeing him again. The other character is Actrise, a witch who Carrie meets just before entering the Castle Center. While Carrie's adoptive mother sacrificed her own life to save her daughter, Actrise sacrificed her own child to gain eternal life. Actrise asks Carrie to join the forces of evil and aid them with her powerful magic, an offer which Carrie refuses outright.

In the vast Castle Center, Carrie and Reinhardt had to overcome many puzzles and defeat a Behemoth monster, but the most disturbing incident proves to another meeting with Malus. The boy has mysteriously found his way into this den of monsters. When Carrie questions him, Malus replies in foreboding terms and runs deeper into the castle, leaving Carrie alone and confused. She meets Actrise again just before taking an elevator to the Tower of Science. Actrise brings the Fernandez warrior with her, a fellow descendant of Sypha Belnades who set out to defeat Dracula but was caught and turned into a vampire. After a protracted battle with the curse, the woman's iron resolve failed, leaving her desperate for human blood. A battle between the relatives ensued, in which Carrie ultimately won a bittersweet victory. She then vows that she will make sure Dracula is destroyed, and implies that she may have regained her faith in God by stating that Camilla will meet her deceased mom in heaven.

After surviving technological weapons in the Tower of Science and enchantments in the Tower of Sorcery, Carrie engages Actrise in battle atop the Room of Clocks, also declaring the latter to be "pathetic" after learning of her background of how she had managed to include her own daughter among the hundred children she callously murdered to prove her loyalty to Dracula. Although Actrise has prodigious control over her dark magic, Carrie proves to be the stronger of the two and defeats the wretched witch. Carrie also deduced that Dracula most likely deliberately had Actrise fight her in order to delay her arrival, and vowed that Dracula is the one entity she will never forgive.

Overcoming the challenge of the Clock Tower, Carrie and Reinhardt reach the Castle Keep and confront Dracula. In the battle that follows, they defeat him with surprising ease.

Just as her whip-wielding counterpart, Reinhardt, has two alternate endings, so does Carrie. Depending on the length of time it took the player to complete the game, events taking place after the clock tower will differ. If the player took less than ten days (in game time) to reach the Castle Keep, they would receive the "Good Ending". Any time more than ten in-game days and they would receive the "Bad Ending".

Though the game keeps Carrie and Reinhardt's quests strictly separate during play, the prologue to Cornell's quest makes reference to both characters' attacks on the castle as being simultaneous, so it indicates that they traveled together in order to defeat Dracula for good.

Bad Ending
After easily defeating Dracula, Carrie turns to discover Malus hiding behind a pillar in the Castle Keep. They leave the castle together and on the way back to the village, Malus asks Carrie her hand in marriage. Carrie refuses at first, but agrees to marry him when they are older. Malus mutters to himself: "Then we have a binding contract", which gives a slight view into Malus' true intentions.

Good Ending
With his final breath, the vampire wills the keep to collapse and seal Fernandez in a rocky tomb. Fleeing the tower, Carrie is attacked by Malus as he flies over her on a winged horse.

Carrie follows Malus to the top of the Clock Tower, where he reveals that he was the resurrected Dracula all along. The vampire she defeated in the keep was one of Dracula's servants, Gilles de Rais, disguised as the Count to draw suspicion away from the child. Malus transforms into a grown man, the real Dracula. Carrie defeats him and he transforms back into a child. In an attempt to fool Carrie, he pretends to not remember the events that just transpired. Charles Vincent, having reached them just in time, reveals Malus' deception by throwing holy water on him. Enraged, Dracula transports himself and Carrie to another dimension, revealing his true form in a final effort to destroy her. With her hereditary magic and conviction, Carrie manages to overcome the monstrous Count once and for all. After Dracula's defeat, she is transported back to her own dimension where she watches the castle crumble into the lake. Her quest complete, Carrie finds peace by visiting her mother's grave, placing flowers on the monument to honor her memory.