#jonathan harker

[hervissa]

"There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many, happy years for you both."

--sister Agatha, Aug 12th

PROMISE, BRAM?

P R O M I S E?

[immediatebreakfast]

MY GOOD FRIEND JONATHAN HARKER!

IS!

ALIVEEEEEEE!

[natalie-waite]

Jan Schánilec as Jonathan Harker in Hrabě Drakula / Count Dracula (1970) dir. Anna Procházková

[asharkapologist]

The funniest part is that tons of those dogshit adaptations in any form of media (movies, theater, tv, novels) claim that they are "fixing" Mina from the "sexist original"

Right??

Like don’t get me wrong. The original Dracula is not perfect, including in its depiction of women. It is noteworthy that the female vampires’ deaths are described in gruesome detail while Dracula’s death is much faster, and the female vampires are constantly described as “voluptuous,” with sexual women being depicted as sinful, evil, and temptresses. A common misogynistic way to write women, and Mina herself mocks the “new age woman” and the idea of feminism.

However, despite that, Mina is ABSOLUTELY the smartest person in the novel! Van Helsing is said to be very intelligent, and he does indeed know the most about vampires, but he makes idiotic decisions, such as locking Mina out of the loop for her “protection,” which the book COMPLETELY portrays as the WRONG decision! Mina is the one recording and writing, coming up with ideas such as for Van Helsing to hypnotize her after she’s bitten, refusing to be a passive victim. Mina is a working woman; her husband adores her and is not insecure in his relationship with her, and most of all, she does not fall in love with Dracula! Why would he? He murdered her friend, kidnapped her husband, and assaulted her! And while she pities him simply because of how evil and incapable of love and humanity he is, she still knows he needs to be killed. And again, she and Jonathan have such a tender relationship.

So why on earth is it more empowering to have her be a damsel who falls in love with the monster preying on her and her friend in a shitty forbidden romance? (And don’t get me started on the vicious misogyny targeted towards Lucy by some critics and adaptors). I can understand wanting to make a more nuanced take on Dracula as a character, but when you keep him as a murderer and predator…what are we doing? I’m sure it was daring and subversive to make Mina fall in love with Dracula at some point, but there’s NOTHING subversive about that now, especially with how her agency is stripped away and she loses all resourcefulness and exists to make Dracula happy and angsty. Having an accurate adaptation of Dracula where Dracula is evil and Mina wants to help take him down and loves her husband would be far more shocking and subversive than anything else. 

And don’t get me started on how Jonmina is butchered, and how there’s quite a bit of toxic masculinity thrown towards Jonathan for his supposed “weakness” and “emotions,” which apparently makes him “boring,” showing casual ableism from people dismissing or rolling their eyes at obvious PTSD signs. That comes off as extremely nasty, too, and seeing such a gentle, vulnerable man in the source material being turned into a boring, oppressive, typical Victorian man who doesn’t want his wife to leave the boundaries of her rigid gender role is so disappointing. 

I just want one accurate Dracula adaptation! Just one! One that captures the beautiful relationship between Jonathan and Mina, shows Mina’s intelligence and proactiveness rather than making her fall in love with an abusive murderer, and one that doesn’t slut-shame Lucy but shows her as incredibly kind and loving and wanting to please and help everyone. Mina and Jonathan are both among my favorite literary characters and couples, and I’m so tired of seeing them consistently done dirty. 

[wife-guy-tournaments]

Propaganda for Jonathan Harker — he canonically would basically kill himself and sacrifice everything for his wife

^

[see-arcane]

New free chapter of Harker is up in the Patreon!

Includes heights, horrors, and terrible revelations.

Harker - Chapter 16 | See Arcane

Action! The painted hours of morning were still there when he woke. Jonathan went to his window and found the sun posed against the crisp bl

[diana-prince43]

It's not for ruin Dracula of Francis Ford Coppola but what's supposed that happen with Jonathan and Mina at the end? I supposed to believe that their marriage would still work after all these dark soulmatism story between her and Vlad? :-(

[sanguivorestorytime]