Them: En Garde, villain! We shall defeat you in honourable duel. Pistols at dawn! One on one, for we are upstanding men with principles.
The Dracula team: Let's all break into his house ambush him and mug him with knives
the topical shitpost i had for this was so old i redrew it so i wouldn't have to look at henry's old hair
but yes, it's extremely funny. at one point they are held up in their quest to Defeat The Vampire In Honorable Duel by the fact that varney, being new in the neighborhood and having no friends, has no one to appoint as a second, and OBVIOUSLY you can't fight the vampire who attacked your family if he doesn't have a SECOND. that simply is not done. so they appoint admiral bell as his second, which goes about as well as you can imagine
From what I have seen, the only ones who kill a vampire in Varney are presented to be bad people?
it's...a bit more complicated than that. broadly: kind of? but the reasons why are fascinating.
in the first half of the story, varney is The Villain. the inciting incident of the plot is him breaking into the Bannerworth house and biting Flora Bannerworth, the only female character of note in this part of the story, and the rest of the plot is the Bannerworths struggling against his increasingly scooby-doo-villain-esque hijinks while they try to figure out how to get rid of him. he lies, he cheats, he steals, he insults them to their faces, he kidnaps flora's fiance, he (probably) commits forgery, he breaks into their house over and over again, he stages elaborate spooky theatrical effects to make himself seem creepier, and generally he is a huge pain in the ass. the bannerworths, at this point the story's heroic protagonists, want him gone by any means necessary. and they do try to kill him!
honorably, in a duel.
this is the distinction the story makes: not that it is Right or Wrong to kill a vampire, but that it matters how you do it. the bannerworths, Our Heroes, challenge varney to...let's see...at least three duels. (only one is ever actually carried out.) as far as the story is concerned, this is perfectly right and fair and honorable. nevermind the fact that varney is textually unable to be killed by bullets, as he'll simply come back to life the next time the moon shines on him, this is the Right And Proper way to go about killing a vampire. he is, after all, a gentleman, if a bloodsucking one.
by contrast, the local townsfolk are painted as very much In The Wrong when they go about trying to kill the vampire threat. james malcolm rymer hates the working class, and BOY does it show. enter the true villain of varney the vampire: The Mob. the first Mob shows up at the conclusion of henry bannerworth's duel with varney, henry having failed to kill the vampire because varney, to all appearances, simply resisted the bullet.
The Mob, showing up as they do on the heels of The Honorable Duel, are presented in sharp and deliberate contrast to the gentlemanly way of doing things. they are bloodthirsty, uneducated, and refuse to listen to reason, and are easily stirred up into committing disproportionate acts of violence. the bannerworths are horrified by the sight of them, and even though varney is their enemy and they just got done trying to kill him themselves, they agree that they ought to help varney by trying to drive the mob off, because Surely This Is Taking Things Too Far.
rymer's caricature of the frightened masses is illuminating of a lot of things about his mindset, but it's interesting to note the contrasts here. the approaches his human heroes take are ineffective, at times almost cartoonishly so, at addressing the threat they face. the actions of The Mob, on the other hand, are brutally, often horrifyingly, effective. The Mob gets shit done. often, it's the wrong shit; rymer goes out of his way to highlight the brutality of the actions committed by The Mob, contrasted to the heroes' ineffectual but noble waffling. impotent action, even inaction, is painted as the more virtuous approach - better to not accomplish your goals at all than to accomplish them rudely. protecting your family from a monster is honorable, but not if you're going to be so violent about it.
VARNEY POSTING PART 3: varney you have GOT to branch out on the biting people this is ridiculous. you should bite charles holland i mean bite charles holland i mean bite charles holland i mean bite charles holland i mean
"the vampires convene under the light of the full moon, raising their arms to the sky; they refer to each other as "brothers" and talk very formally; they occasionally all chant "blood! blood!" in unison; and of course they all carry matching shovels which they use to dig up the body."
This is so funny I would think it's a scene from WWDITS.
And the part with one (1) vampire among the evil cult groaning during the entire raising process is potential for comedy gold scene.
Imagine them all in black cloaks going "Thy time has arrived, brother!" and lifting their arms chanting "blood blood". Meanwhile Varney keeps going "Why am I even needed here" "Can't Satan or whoever just raise the dead himself if he needs us so badly" "I mean I myself rose without a vampire chanting so?" "I have better things to do such as languishing" "Is he rising yet?" While one of them whispers to the next, arms still lifted, why do we have him come for evil rituals he always ruins the vibe.
oh that's basically exactly what happens. the following is a direct quote from the text:
"Brothers," he said, "you who prey upon human nature by the law of your being, we have work to do to-night -- that work which we never leave undone, and which we dare not neglect when we know that it is to do. One of our fraternity lies here."
"Yes," said the others, with the exception of one, and he spoke passionately.
"Why," he said, "when there were enough, and more than enough, to do the work, summon me?"
over the course of the scene, varney proceeds to make the following complaints:
he was busy -- he's hungry, he was out getting food, why'd they have to interrupt him like this
"I was engaged in my vocation. If the moon shine out in all her lustre again, you will see that I am wan and wasted, and have need of--"
"Blood," said one.
"Blood, blood, blood," repeated the others.
he doesn't have time for this, can we hurry it up please
"Let the work be proceeded with then, at once, I have no time to spare."
who even was this guy we're digging up
"Let it be done with. Where lies the vampyre? Who was he?"
this guy sounds like an asshole. fine, i'll help dig him up, but he can climb out of the grave his own damn self, i'm not helping him
"Shall we aid him."
"No," said Varney, "I have heard that of him which shall not induce me to lift hand or voice in his behalf. Let him fly, shrieking like a frightened ghost where he lists."
wow he's taking a while. did we even dig up the right guy?
A quarter of an hour, however, passed away, and nothing happened.
"Are you certain he is one of us?" whispered Varney.
are we done yet??
"Is it done?" said Varney.
"Not yet," said he who had summoned the[m] to the fearful rite[...]
he goes through the whole scene with the approximate air of someone who's been summoned to a mandatory work meeting on his lunch hour. the other vampires treat the whole scene with grave (haha) importance and mostly ignore his constant complaining. funniest of all, they seem to view him with some reverence, as he's apparently well known and well respected in the vampire community for having lived a really long time (if the line of background he drops in this scene is to be believed, he goes back as far as the 14th century!)
and then as soon as the scene is over, we return to the main plot as though nothing had happened, which at this point in the story consists of three different parties of scooby-doo villains (including varney) all trying to outscheme each other at once, complete with silly disguises and attempts to scare people by dressing up as a monster. the vampire council is never mentioned again and are never relevant to anything else that happens.
