honestly after seeing everything, from films to annotated books, say 1. him getting a "wicked desire" out of the sisters is Repression, or fear of dominant women, or it was hot and he'd enjoy it 2. him not recording what happened between him and Dracula the last night is him "hiding a homosexual affair" 3. him being unable to wake up to save Mina makes him a cuckold and "demoted" by the forbidden object of mina's desire... It's nice to see all three instances when he got assaulted (because 3rd Oct was an assault on him too dammit) being treated seriously, instead of turned into jokes or infidelity Actually.
I joke a lot about subjecting poor Jonathan to assorted horrors, but the truth of it is that while I do like throwing new twists and terrors his way, this guy was already very much subject to a wide array of nightmares and traumas that the rest of the cast never experiences, and for far longer. This obviously isn't to belittle the brisker and more immediately vicious attacks Dracula inflicts on, say, Lucy and Mina, but those same threats--exsanguination, death, undeath, automatic enslavement/entrapment--were all still very much intended for Jonathan on top of the rest of his two month marathon of psychological torture.
And you're right. The latter is never, ever brought up in Dracula media other than Dracula itself. Certainly never with any kind of dignity, honesty, or acknowledgment of the horror involved. Part of the reason I write Mr. Harker into so many miserable corners--corners that, some have pointed out, he's only trapped in by dint of the Villain of the Moment taking a covetous interest in him, be it for his weird strengths or his charm or both--is to highlight the fact that he is a damsel in distress. One who is consistently targeted because he appeals to the monster(s).
Jonathan Harker is a good, sweet, strong, intriguing, desirable character.
Jonathan Harker is a victim of unwanted amorous and/or literally bloodthirsty attention from multiple aggressors.
Jonathan Harker is a traumatized individual who, regardless of what sequels or spinoffs try to twist in otherwise, spent months having his mind dragged over broken glass as he tried to juggle trying to get help, trying to escape, trying not to anger the undead horror keeping him prisoner, trying not to get magically coerced into laying back and letting the sexual predator-coded vampires take turns drinking from him or worse, trying at the very end of his rope to attack the monster only to get parried by yet another surprise superpower and the cheat of arriving minions and elements to conspire against him, trying, trying, trying everything he could think of to Not Be in This Hell, only to ultimately gamble himself on a cliff fall or death in the wilderness rather than stay another minute in that stone box of nightmares and undead eternity with the Weird Sisters.
Jonathan Harker has all this inflicted on him because, like Lucy, like Mina, he was wanted too much. And, like them, he did not want any of it.
Jonathan Harker is not weak for that.
No narrative that tries to warp him into either a quailingly repressed hater of powerful women, or secretly willing cheater with the Brides or Dracula, or any other copout to make it seem like a softer, ignorable, unctuous little footnote in someone else's liberating vampire fetish take on Dracula in which he is unceremoniously booted aside for Mina and the Count's ribald affair which is automatically a better thing than Jonathan daring to have such with the Brides or Dracula has any merit to it. Period. But the infuriating fact is, yeah. The latter are an overwhelming majority in films, shows, and books.
So I feel no shame whatsoever in being as indulgent as possible in my portrayal of Jonathan as the first and most long-term damaged victim of the Count; the only victim in the book who was not one of Dracula's idle afterthoughts, but a meticulous and coveted project. His pain and his appeal are both overdue a spotlight by over a century. So it's all going into whatever I write with him.
jacobvanloon
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
