Vlad Țepeș

'Vlad Țepeș'
Debut (Manga):
Debut (Anime):	Episode 12
Affiliation:	Historic Figure
Seiyū:
Voice actor:

Vlad Țepeș was a historic figure and based on Vlad the Impaler. He is one of many historic figurines that Flint Hammerhead met in his adventures.

Depiction in the show

Vlad is portrayed a man who lead a lonely and troubled life. Due to his reputation across Europe, even his own people did not trust him. After saving the village, they finally open up to him. This allowed him to become the beloved hero of his homeland, despite his violent reputation abroad.

History

Vlad earnt a reputation for being cruel aboard, leading to mistrust and misconceptions from even his own people. His servants left him.

He found Bindi and took her back to the castle. Due to his loneliness and want of the company, she stayed with him and refused to leave his side when Flint came to take her away. Bindi became jealous of how he acted to Flint, ignoring her completely. When it was noticed she was gone, Vlad became very worried as she had never wondered away from the castle before. When they locate her, she is with Merlock Holmes. Merlock protects Bindi by defending her from Petra, unfortunately some missiles fired at him go off course. To Vlad's horror, the local village mill is set alight and the windmills sails spread the fire across the village.

Vlad organizes the villagers, who are panicking. Though they are reluctant, they do as he commands. When the fires are put out, they gather around him, finally realizing he wasn't as bad as they thought.

With the townsfolk now in awe of him, his memory of meeting Bindi and the others is erased. Vlad goes onto be remembered as he should be.

Trivia

• The English dub openly states the reason for the villagers fearing him was due to being a vampire. This should not be a worry as Vlad won't be associated with Vampries for a few hundred years. It is unknown why the English dub changed the reason why his own people were scared of him. In the Japanese dub,it was only Tony and Sarah who feared him as a vampire.
• He constantly identified himself in the episode as "Vlad Țepeș" even in the Japanese dub. However, he did not earn this name until after his death in the mid 1500s. He himself identified himself as Wladislaus Dragwlya in one of the few recorded self references of his name.
• His association vampires is linked to Merlock Holmes (who is descended from vampires) and Bindi due to her own powers.
• Vlad is the oddest historic figure to feature in the show due to its young target audience. The real life Vlad earn his title of "Impaler" from his favorite method of torture which was impalement. It was known at one stage that he had 20,000 impaled corpses outside his castle. This was noted by Mehmed the Conqueror, a man noted for his own reputation in a similar vein, when he was sickened by the sight. Also, Vlad was not above roasting children and feeding them to their own mothers, making his entry into the series even more controversial.
  • His only reason for being depicted in the show seems to be to link Merlock and Bindi to each other.
  • In fact due to his reputation, Sarah and Tony should have feared him far more for this then for their mistaken fear of him being a vampire.