One thing that's missing from a lot of the current Dracula discourse is an understanding of how vampires actually work in the book's universe.
In most of the modern portrayals we're used to seeimg, vampires are painted as tragic or conflicted figures, that are mostly the same as how they were before being bitten: the same person, just immortal and nocturnal and periodically possessed by bloodlust. Not so in the original book, and not so for our good friend Johnathan Harker.
In the original story that we're currently hearing, vampirism is much more of a transformation, and much more closely tied to undeath and demonic sin. Not only is it brought on by death, but the reanimated corpse retains none of it's soul and it's conscience and any trace of goodness it had in life.
Most of us were delighted and amused at the Count's bizarre antics in the story's first chapters, then suddenly surprised when it took a sudden turn toward horror and apparent homoeroticism when the Count saves Johnny from his 3 blood-slorpimg girlfriends and gives them a baby to eat instead. And yes, that is the point where the nature of the threat becomes clear, but the missed purpose of the first few chapters is to set up not only how absolutely disconnected the Count is from how a normal person lives and acts, but to show how this entire demeanor as a noble gentleman or a friend or a human being is nothing but a poorly-maintained facade, and a means to an end; that end, of course, being to move away from the superstitious and well-guarded countryside, and into a quiet home in the center of London, one of the most densely populous cities in the world at that time.
And somewhere in the Count's conversation with his three fine ladies lies another hint: that love means something completely and entirely different to vampirekind than it does to us. A human does, and should, love through care, concern, goodwill and service. The count wears these things like a mask around Johnathan, but between he and his ladies the mask falls, and we see that when they say love, they mean something else: something on the spectrum between lust and dominance and hunger, and probably closer to the latter. The Count being affectionate is not necessarily a sexy or appealing or desirable occurrence in any way whatsoever at all ever.
The story hasn't suddenly turned toward horror, it has been a slow revealing, to both us and Johnathan, that he is trapped in a castle not with a man but with a THING. It wears the skin and memories of a nobleman who died long ago, likely in one of those wars it's so fond of recounting, but it is even less his friend than we are. We, and Johnathan, can be certain now that the moment he has served his civilized purpose the pretenses will drop, and the beast and its beastettes will devour him,
I love this story. Familiarity and memes can turn horror into comedy so easily, as we have been proving, but beneath it all, this is some damn good horror.
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
prguitarman
blakekathryn
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
baratheonpilled
theartofmadeline
