I sometimes remember Anno Dracula when I go here— Looking back, the books and graphic novels are not good or fun. And none of the featured vampires feel like themselves, do they? I get changing characters to flesh them out, but if only the names remain then what’s the point? The human main characters are more interesting. The plots are mid, and for all its gore, nudity and “grown-up” posturing, it is ultimately wishy-washy.
Because AD relies on classic horror, yet the author’s chosen vampires can opt out of the uncomfy parts. For instance, Kate Reed (scrapped Stoker character) feels a sexualized temptation around blood after she turns, but she resists it. She feeds on packed blood snacks, privately, as she finds any public feeding shameful. I couldn’t help noticing that female vampires who sexily feed on randos and enjoy it end up murdered. In a sequel, Kostaki sheds his entire identity, abstains from blood forever, and represses his dark nature which he loathes with a vegetarian substitute. Literally. Lord Ruthven is a harmless gloat. Geneviève Dieudonné fights evil and feeds only ethically and sparingly. Unlike the Carpathian vampires, she does not turn into beasts or go feral. Instead, her “purer” French royal vampiric bloodline gives her greater control— which is why she easily defeats them. She hates problematic “Truly Dead” vampires who give into “The Red Thirst,” feeds in tiny drops from her willing partner, legally, and she patronizes blood banks. But. Why use classic vampire mains if you want “ethical vampires”? They are from gothic fiction. Just make an immortal superhero OC with a silver allergy fighting baddies. I love the idea of a literary vampireverse, learning about the old stories, their influence, their historical contexts, and potential ways to adapt/retell/mix them. But AD is not good. ...I have feelings about this series clearly
my greatest anno dracula Hot Take is that it doesn't deserve the title of "ultimate literary vampire crossover". In fact, it cares so little about any of the literary vampire pack that I hesitate to call it a literary vampire crossover at all. That's not the story Kim Newman wanted to write; it's not the story he's interested in telling. He got the idea to write a story in which Jack Seward and Jack the Ripper are the same person, and constructed all of his shoddy worldbuilding around propping up that premise.
unorganized ranting under the cut; cw for discussion of xenophobia, misogyny, disordered eating, homophobia, and also me losing my cool and yelling a lot
i knew about a bunch of the blood drinking stuff but this bit with kate reed is new to me. it's funny how for as edgy a series as this clearly wants to be, it's too chicken to make any of its vampire protagonists morally gray in regards to blood drinking. like damn, man, if i wanted vampires with nothing i'd go read twilight, and then i wouldn't have to feel my blood pressure rise another two points every time kostaki's name appears on the page attached to a character who is as much his opposite as it is possible to get. but the actual lore around the blood drinking is batshit. apparently copstaki (i refuse to call newman's character anything else) finds out that he actually becomes stronger when he abstains from blood. at the time i learned about this i was like "what is this, some nofap shit?" given the detail about kate reed, apparently yes???
my biggest gripe with all this stupid shit around the blood drinking, though, is the way it evolves throughout the story, because it is initially framed as a physical need—you know, the way it is in 19th century vampire fiction—before copstaki discovers the magic of nofap. hold on where's the quote
As a vampire elder, he discovered he grew stronger through starvation. Dracula's get knew something they never talked of. They drank human blood not because they needed to, but because they wanted to. Needing was no shame. Wanting was weakness.
I HATE THIS FRAMING. SO MUCH. oh my god oh my FUCKING god if you are going to tell a vampire story in which blood drinking is framed as a temptation/addiction rather than a physical need, YOU NEED TO WRITE IT THAT WAY FROM THE START. otherwise, what you have written is a story in which having an eating disorder is framed as the morally correct choice.
also, much smaller gripe, but "needing was no shame" is a stupid cop-out. incredible amounts of privilege and entitlement shining through. plenty of needs are shameful. needing to hurt other human beings in order to survive is shameful. that is, dare i say, The Whole Point. but rather than tackle the moral complexity of that and take all the FREE CHARACTER ANGST that results from having to do something awful in order to survive, he just has his protagonist conveniently discover that the defining feature of vampirism is, in fact, optional, which allows him to sort every character into Morally Pure Abstinent Paragons and Icky Degenerate Blood Perverts and avoid all those nasty moral and ethical quandaries, because god forbid this work of horror vampire fiction have moral grayness in it.
SPEAKING OF "DEGENERACY" kim newman hates eastern europeans so fucking much it's actually insane. Oh your Carpathian characters are all more savage and bestial and prone to "degeneration" while your English and French characters have "purer" bloodlines and stronger minds and greater self-control? Why don't you start comparing their fucking skull shapes while you're at it. Jesus Christ. And of course in this story the Icky Degenerate Easterners stage a violent takeover of England and the Heroic English Resistance must bravely fight back against their savage oppressors. Not only is this story more racist than the original Dracula, it's in direct competition with The Beetle.
oh and don't forget about the misogyny!! welcome to my Dracula fanfic with cameos from other literary vampires where we simply MUST conform 100% to the strict letter of Carmilla canon, no bringing her back from the dead, it is simply impossible, the book said she died so she's dead. Oh Kostaki? Yeah he's 400 years old and a cop. So instead of Carmilla who do we get? Her mother, a formidable, mysterious, and manipulative vampire who was left alive at the end of the book? Lmao no, Random Male Relative. What about Clarimonde? Well, she's not in this series. Kim will reference her name one (1) time in the title of a play, though, just so you know he COULD have put her in and specifically chose not to. Female suffering, framed through a titillating lens, is milked for shock value (it's not just all the violently murdered sex workers, it's shit like dracula parading queen victoria around on a leash like a dog, supposedly treating her like the rest of his vampire "harem" even though that is extremely not how the weird sisters are treated in Dracula proper). But everyone bends over backwards to give him brownie points for including Kate Reed, even though nothing I've heard about her character so far gives me any reason to believe he's taken her in a direction worth reading.
To bring this back around Kim's (lack of) use of literary vampires, he clearly doesn't want to, or at least he doesn't care about them one way or another. Varney doesn't appear; he gets a couple of dismissive offhand mentions and that's it. Kostaki, despite what you've heard, does not appear either. I don't know who the fuck that bootlicking loser is in Newman's book, but it sure isn't Kostaki. Gorcha, Azzo, and Vardalek are all unrecognizable, because Kim assumes no one in his audience will have actually read their stories to call him on his mischaracterization—or else, again, he doesn't care. I will draw and quarter him for what he did to Vardalek. I don't even really want to defend Vardalek but what Kim did with him is beyond the pale. The entire concept of the "Carpathian Guard" is laughable and spits in the face of every character he ropes into it, but especially Vardalek, who is not remotely Carpathian by any stretch of the imagination. Why is he in there, then? Homophobia. Vardalek is the series' only gay character; he's also a child predator (a description which, frankly, does not even begin to describe his portrayal in the series, but I'd really rather not get into that topic). Kim also doesn't care about the lore of ANY of these books, INCLUDING DRACULA ITSELF. We've talked about the blood thing, but you know what else? You know what kills vampires in this worthless hack of a series? SUNLIGHT AND SILVER. Basically the ONLY two things in modern vampire lore that have ZERO basis in ANY literary work. Because fuck you, that's why. The series is also full of references to a bunch of other, more recent pop culture vampires, as well as a bunch of non-vampire literature cameos; it seems like all this shit is only there to score points with readers who get excited every time a story references another story.
In conclusion, if you want a book which mixes together a bunch of literary vampires, read Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice.
the new dracula daily entry with the brides manifesting as moonlit dust taking human form to again try to eat jonathan makes me curious if more vampires used to do misty transformations before the dracula ones
then, the scene that follows with dracula summoning animals to do his bidding, which is i think unique to him
and then dracula being "dead" the morning after scene, when the dawn is emphasized as almost sacred and jonathan finds dracula sleeping after imitating his climbing movements. the vampire falling asleep after the dawn is as old as vampire folklore, but i suspect stories of them being revealed in their tombs is not after the protagonist had risked their lives to discover them
As far as I'm aware, Dracula is the first vampire story to feature vampires turning into mist/dust.
I can't recall any other stories where the vampire has command over animals, either, although a few feature dogs or wolves being repelled by vampires. Dogs bark at Carmilla and at Geraldine in Christabel; in The Family of the Vourdalak, one of the family dogs barks at Gorcha and he makes them shoot it. It's implied that the dog barked at Gorcha because it could smell that he was dead. In La Guzla, crows avoid the vampire's corpse, while in the ballad in The Pale Lady which takes inspiration from the former, wolves and vultures flee from him. Wolves also flee from the vampire in The Mysterious Stranger (which, disclaimer, I have not read yet).
While I'm talking about dogs, I think the howling of dogs breaking someone out of a vampiric trance is unique to Stoker; protagonists in other stories tend to be aided by the power of God (Marquis d'Urfe in The Family of the Vourdalak is snapped out of his trance by the cross necklace he wears digging into his flesh, while Hedwig is protected from Kostaki's trance by a blessed palm frond dipped in holy water). Jonathan being helped by the dogs parallels another Stoker work, the short story "The Judge's House", in which the protagonist is aided by the rats living in the titular house, which attempt to ring a bell in the house in order to signal for help. It's an adorable recurring motif.
The passage about the dawn makes me think of this one from Varney the Vampire:
What wonderfully different impressions and feelings, with regard to the same circumstances, come across the mind in the broad, clear, and beautiful light of day to what haunt the imagination, and often render the judgment almost incapable of action, when the heavy shadow of night is upon all things.
There must be a downright physical reason for this effect—it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun’s rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the nerves of the human subject.
Rymer being Rymer, he naturally has to insist that this is a physical, scientific phenomenon.
Vampires being discovered asleep in their tombs is actually fairly common, although generally the process of discovery is not quite so perilous as Jonathan's. Sometimes (as with Sigismund, Clarimonde, Clara Crofton, and Har (in "Manor")), the location of the vampire's grave is a known fact. Other times (Carmilla and After Ninety Years), discovering where the vampire is buried is a whole process. Generally, the vampire is defenseless in the daytime; Dracula's hate-filled gaze that (spoilers for Dracula Daily) causes Jonathan to fumble his shovel swing is something of an innovation. The closest we see to this in another vampire story is Kostaki in The Pale Lady, although this instance technically occurs before he rises as a vampire:
The corpse’s eyes opened and stared at me, more alive than I had ever seen them, and, as if the two rays they emitted had been palpable, I felt what seemed like two red-hot irons plunging into my heart.
It's not the only instance of an evil-eye type power in a vampire work prior to Dracula, but it's the only one (that I know of) that occurs while the vampire is dead/asleep.
...No, wait, I tell a lie. It's in Varney, sort of.
"The deed was done; there was sufficient light for us to look upon the features of the dying man. Ghastly and terrific they glared upon us; while the glazed eyes, as they were upturned to the bright sky, seemed appealing to Heaven for vengeance against us, for having done the deed.
"Many a day and many an hour since at all times and all seasons, I have seen those eyes, with the glaze of death upon them, following me, and gloating over the misery they had the power to make. I think I see them now."
"Indeed!"
"Yes; look—look—see how they glare upon me—with what a fixed and frightful stare the bloodshot pupils keep their place—there, there! oh! save me from such a visitation again. It is too horrible. I dare not—I cannot endure it; and yet why do you gaze at me with such an aspect, dread visitant? You know that it was not my hand that did the deed—who laid you low. You know that not to me are you able to lay the heavy charge of your death!"
I say "sort of" because the speaker here is Varney himself, and the dead man he speaks of is never explicitly confirmed to be a vampire; the story seems like it's kind of going that direction, but changes course at the last second, retcons Varney being a vampire altogether (yes, it's that part), and forgets all about this guy. Also, it's not clear this is intended to be a supernatural effect; it may simply be a product of Varney's trauma and guilt.
I'm not up to returning the gift. But, it seems to me as if Dracula's powers aren't meant to be vampiric. Not in this case, and maybe not even often. The powers of the vampire to reject death, feed on living blood, travel immaterially into their tomb, which are folkloric (reference needed) balance with the weaknesses peculiar to vampirism (anything related to Xtian resurrection, must consume blood of the living, must rest in tomb) and belong to all vampires.
His unique powers of storm summoning, mesmerism, lycanthropy, all the weird shit, comes down to his tendency to nerd out over any and all sorcerous study. He's been in this field of poppies for a long time. It's gotten pretty freaky in there. Even among ancient undead monstrosities the guy is built different.
Some of his powers are for sure products of his Scholomance education. However, quite a few of them aren't unique to him! Alinska in The Virgin Vampire shares his ability to control storms. Carmilla can shapeshift, as can Heira from The Vampire of Vourla (the latter turns into a bat, even). As for mesmerism, many if not most literary vampires possess the ability in some form or another, even the spectacularly unsupernatural Varney.
If Dracula were to go up against the rest of the literary vampire pack in a wizard duel, he might also find he has some competition. In addition to storm summoning, Alinska can also astral project (at least, that's my best interpretation for how she's able to remotely punch and slap people and destroy letters contained in locked boxes). Liatoukine from Captain Vampire can be in two places at once and kill with a stare. The Black Vampyre is an accomplished necromancer, and also has a potion that will cure vampirism—although he's a satire character, and thus playing in a different ballpark. Carmilla and her mother are forces to be reckoned with; the former can teleport like a ghost girl in a horror movie and inflict a person with permanent numbness with a touch, while the latter is capable of not only reading but modifying peoples' memories. Countess Karnstein can also oathbind (force a person to keep a promise/secret), a power she shares with Geraldine and Lord Ruthven. The vampires in The Family of the Vourdalak can completely hide their corpselike appearance and smell from humans, possibly through some sort of mesmeric trance. Clarimonde has immense power over dreams, creating entire fully-staffed palaces which she spirits people away to in their sleep and holds wild dream-parties. Sava Savanovič and Kostaki can both pass through locked and barred doors without obstacle, a power I'm sure the threshold-locked Dracula is burningly envious of. Kostaki is also fatal to fight, regardless of whether he wins: his brother, wielding a holy sword and backed by the power of God Himself, collapsed and died without a scratch on him less than a minute after killing Kostaki.
So, overall, I wouldn't say Dracula is built terribly different from his vampire peers. His Scholomance education gives him an edge, true, but they're a diverse supernatural group packing all sorts of strange powers.
Dracula comfortably in his "bedroom" chilling on his "bed" knowing well that the door has been locked and bolted for ages and then notices his plaything hovering over him
#on a side note imagine the very real possibility that relia could have had a crush on liatoukine before all of the torture happened #and be devastated with me
so you've chosen Violence
i've set him up as having a Thing for dark brooding somewhat scary men (he definitely had a crush on ioan in the book, fight me on this) and you know his family were gassing up Liatoukine all the time. before he knew what Liatoukine was like? that's a tall dark and handsome, rich, high-ranking man in uniform with an impressive military record and a great deal of societal esteem, a deep (sexy) voice, and an enigmatic manner and reputation. and he's a friend of the family. relia's mother is actively pushing his sisters to flirt with him. why wouldn't he fantasize a little about what could never be, or get a little flustered when liatoukine calls him by name. maybe there was a little thrill of excitement when liatoukine and his buddies first showed up to relieve him of watch duty. he's being invited to their inner circle, wow!
Oh Liatoukine can absolutely tell, and is using it to his advantage. The nature of what he and his goons do to Relia makes that pretty clear. Making Relia talk about his "mistresses" in Paris (knowing full well he did not have any), making him say "I love you" to Igor under the pretext of a language lesson...even before the knouts come out it's all very pointed. (Yes, you could argue this behavior is targeting Relia's gayness more generally, but in the framework of a reading where Relia has a crush on Liatoukine it's hard to imagine Liatoukine not noticing.)
the new dracula daily entry with the brides manifesting as moonlit dust taking human form to again try to eat jonathan makes me curious if more vampires used to do misty transformations before the dracula ones
then, the scene that follows with dracula summoning animals to do his bidding, which is i think unique to him
and then dracula being "dead" the morning after scene, when the dawn is emphasized as almost sacred and jonathan finds dracula sleeping after imitating his climbing movements. the vampire falling asleep after the dawn is as old as vampire folklore, but i suspect stories of them being revealed in their tombs is not after the protagonist had risked their lives to discover them
As far as I'm aware, Dracula is the first vampire story to feature vampires turning into mist/dust.
I can't recall any other stories where the vampire has command over animals, either, although a few feature dogs or wolves being repelled by vampires. Dogs bark at Carmilla and at Geraldine in Christabel; in The Family of the Vourdalak, one of the family dogs barks at Gorcha and he makes them shoot it. It's implied that the dog barked at Gorcha because it could smell that he was dead. In La Guzla, crows avoid the vampire's corpse, while in the ballad in The Pale Lady which takes inspiration from the former, wolves and vultures flee from him. Wolves also flee from the vampire in The Mysterious Stranger (which, disclaimer, I have not read yet).
While I'm talking about dogs, I think the howling of dogs breaking someone out of a vampiric trance is unique to Stoker; protagonists in other stories tend to be aided by the power of God (Marquis d'Urfe in The Family of the Vourdalak is snapped out of his trance by the cross necklace he wears digging into his flesh, while Hedwig is protected from Kostaki's trance by a blessed palm frond dipped in holy water). Jonathan being helped by the dogs parallels another Stoker work, the short story "The Judge's House", in which the protagonist is aided by the rats living in the titular house, which attempt to ring a bell in the house in order to signal for help. It's an adorable recurring motif.
The passage about the dawn makes me think of this one from Varney the Vampire:
What wonderfully different impressions and feelings, with regard to the same circumstances, come across the mind in the broad, clear, and beautiful light of day to what haunt the imagination, and often render the judgment almost incapable of action, when the heavy shadow of night is upon all things.
There must be a downright physical reason for this effect—it is so remarkable and so universal. It seems that the sun’s rays so completely alter and modify the constitution of the atmosphere, that it produces, as we inhale it, a wonderfully different effect upon the nerves of the human subject.
Rymer being Rymer, he naturally has to insist that this is a physical, scientific phenomenon.
Vampires being discovered asleep in their tombs is actually fairly common, although generally the process of discovery is not quite so perilous as Jonathan's. Sometimes (as with Sigismund, Clarimonde, Clara Crofton, and Har (in "Manor")), the location of the vampire's grave is a known fact. Other times (Carmilla and After Ninety Years), discovering where the vampire is buried is a whole process. Generally, the vampire is defenseless in the daytime; Dracula's hate-filled gaze that (spoilers for Dracula Daily) causes Jonathan to fumble his shovel swing is something of an innovation. The closest we see to this in another vampire story is Kostaki in The Pale Lady, although this instance technically occurs before he rises as a vampire:
The corpse’s eyes opened and stared at me, more alive than I had ever seen them, and, as if the two rays they emitted had been palpable, I felt what seemed like two red-hot irons plunging into my heart.
It's not the only instance of an evil-eye type power in a vampire work prior to Dracula, but it's the only one (that I know of) that occurs while the vampire is dead/asleep.
...No, wait, I tell a lie. It's in Varney, sort of.
"The deed was done; there was sufficient light for us to look upon the features of the dying man. Ghastly and terrific they glared upon us; while the glazed eyes, as they were upturned to the bright sky, seemed appealing to Heaven for vengeance against us, for having done the deed.
"Many a day and many an hour since at all times and all seasons, I have seen those eyes, with the glaze of death upon them, following me, and gloating over the misery they had the power to make. I think I see them now."
"Indeed!"
"Yes; look—look—see how they glare upon me—with what a fixed and frightful stare the bloodshot pupils keep their place—there, there! oh! save me from such a visitation again. It is too horrible. I dare not—I cannot endure it; and yet why do you gaze at me with such an aspect, dread visitant? You know that it was not my hand that did the deed—who laid you low. You know that not to me are you able to lay the heavy charge of your death!"
I say "sort of" because the speaker here is Varney himself, and the dead man he speaks of is never explicitly confirmed to be a vampire; the story seems like it's kind of going that direction, but changes course at the last second, retcons Varney being a vampire altogether (yes, it's that part), and forgets all about this guy. Also, it's not clear this is intended to be a supernatural effect; it may simply be a product of Varney's trauma and guilt.
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