Could Death "legally" be a character in Bloodstained?

in my opinion, yes... Death is not owned by konami (<-- I refuse to capitalize their name anymore, they are dead to me lol). but maybe Death being the emissary or right hand of Dracula might be, so I think as long as Death is not Gebel's number 2 they should be fine...

But yeah I want death in Bloodstained too... though it would be better if Death was a hidden boss that was more lost then wanting to fight... I personally don't want Death to be controlled by anyone he/she is their own entity.

like a lady or a gentleman, that invites you to high tea, and tries to take your soul? or a little girl that wants you to play with her... I would mind seeing a different take on Death, though the "skeleton cloaked in shadows" form would be fine with me.

But I would like seeing a La Muerte version of Death... but she is kind of a good guy, maybe she just "tests" Miriam and her skills.

Death, Dracula, Alucard et al could all be used in Bloodstained as long as they didn't look too similar to a Konami iteration without precedent (for example, I think they'd be safe with any appearance for Dracula or Death, but probably not so with Alucard). Just look at Buer.

But this topic does touch upon one of my concerns with Bloodstained: the idea that the folks involved in making this game may shy away from certain creative avenues, either because of a desire to be different or because they specifically want to avoid comparisons, for critical or legal reasons. For example, Michiru Yamane may end up making an entire soundtrack that doesn't have a single Toccata-and-Fugue-esque organ melody (or maybe no organs at all), even though it would still be perfect for the gothic setting, just because that's how it was done in Castlevania.

I'd be pretty happy if I learned that Bloodstained will feature Death at some point - ideally as a sort of second-in-command. I think that would be a nice message to Konami.

I mean I think its less a fear of legal repercussion and more a desire for creative freedom. I mean obviously everyone here wants a Castlevania like experience but, when given free reign, if the absolute best they can do is regurgitate the exact same antagonists, etc. from the previous series, that's disappointing from both the producers side and from the consumers side. That's why Iga isn't using Dracula - not because he's remotely afraid Konami will bother him but because he wants to do something different. He's completely free of the Castlevania baggage and timeline. This is the ideal time for him, or anyone else on the team, to stretch their creative wings.

As an aside, while I think its likely Yamane wants to avoid recomposing say "A Lost Painting", I think fears she might avoid a particular instrument or type of instrument border on paranoia and hyperbole. Like just c'mon son!

I still think what happened to death in the show is bs.

But yeah he/she/force of nature should be legally able to appear in the game, Public Domain rules.

About as much as Thor can be used in anything.

Meaning yes.

Even further, Bloodstained could use Dracula as a character, and there's nothing Konami can do about it. Even further than that, they could use Alucard as well.

What they can't use from Castlevania:
The term "Castlevania"
The exact depictions of Alucard and Dracula as they appear within Castlevania, or any other character.
Art/music assets from any of the games.

And as far as I'm aware, that's about it. They could legally have a character named "Richter Belmont", and as far as I could say, there wouldn't be any problem with that. Now if you could play him as the hero of the story and/or he was going around whipping things, then there's some potential legal trouble there. If we wanted to stretch as much as we could while staying legally safe, just using the name "Belmont" without any further connection, would be the furthest I would ever go.

However "Death" isn't trademarked, copyrighted, patented, or anything. The idea of the character of Death isn't unique either. Meaning, you could still have a floating cloaked spectre with a scythe named Death, and it'd be okay. If that was ever an issue anywhere, Konami would have infringed on someone else's rights first.

And of course the same goes for Dracula/Alucard. Castlevania didn't invent them. Dracula was a heavy rumor a long time ago that eventually got turned into a movie, as such even the movies didn't have legal rights over them, and even if they did they are so old that they have expired by now. If they did have a Copyright on it, it would have expired about 20-30 years ago, putting Dracula and everything related to it under public domain, which is why Konami was able to use it with no legal trouble.

Konami hasn't trademarked Death, so yes they could theoretically use Death as a character or boss. Even a regular enemy.

It didn't really need to be demonstrated by anyone. It's under the same umbrella as Dracula.

Alucard was completely conceived by creative persons, but that again was a long time ago, and any potential copyright revolving around the character (who was actually just Dracula pretending to be human, after they thought they killed Dracula) has long since been expired and is now considered public domain.

Konami doesn't own "Death" as a word, so they have no legal claim to it. They can use "Death" as a character if they wanted to. Gauntlet had a "Death" as well but...can't claim it.

Fun fact: Destroyah from Godzilla got his name because he was originally going to be called "Destroyer." Although, Toho couldn't trademark the word "Destroyer." That is why his name is Destroyah instead.