#Jonathan: “But I don't want to kill you Mina :(”

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

As much as I am very much enthralled by "holiest love" propaganda, it is the time of year where I would like to once again state that I think people on here make it way way way too black and white. Like Jonathan's willingness to follow Mina into the dark is the absolute only way to exhibit true love. I don't think that's true. I see takes every year that sort of vilify the four men for being so willing to kill Lucy... Lucy is dead. Lucy is very much dead. Who knows how much of the old Lucy would have presented itself in vamp!Lucy if given the time to develop, but no matter what the new vampire Lucy would have not been anywhere close to the same person.

If you want to engage in how it works in the novel's canon, there's no such thing as a "good" vampire or "tortured" vampire or whatever. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, souls are real and you lose them when you become a vampire + you lose whatever kindness + goodness you have to become a bloodthirsty murderer.

It's not a heartless response from any of the four men to see vampire Lucy and say, "oh my God, this is not her, something has taken up residence and her corpse is being used to enact harm, we have to put an end to this because we loved her" I don't think that is an unreasonable response and I don't think that that's an unloving response either.

There are two scenarios here, one saying "I'll love you even when you're gone from yourself, I'll love you when your best parts have been taken away never to be returned, I'll love you when it will bring me nothing other than the knowledge that I love" with the counterpoint to that being "are you kidding yourself though. Is the person who you loved even still there. Who is this for?"

And the other being "I'll love you so much that I will protect and fight for the memory of your goodness and your soul. I will not shrink from whatever it takes to grant you peace and free you from this horrible curse which was itself inflicted on you through great violence" with the counterpoint to that being "tell me again how all that violent staking was so righteous + different from the vampire's attack. That's God's peace you saw on her face, right? How could you doubt it?"

You're allowed to prefer one over the other etc, but like. It's all subjective. Love is subjective. There's not one right answer. And people are going to buy into different things depending on which metaphors + subtexts we like best, what our belief systems are, etc. Let's keep the conversations open. Either one could be represented anywhere on the scale of good to bad depending on the type of story you want to tell.

[cry-ptidd]

I would have dropped the whole virgin girl rule. Not only does it contradict itself in its own canon multiple times, not only is it a weak plot device, with weak disclaimers, but it's based largely on pop culture, and definitely not on Dracula. In Dracula, the horror is that anyone in the story can turn into a godforsaken version of themselves and have to deal with it. The Romanian First Mate commits suicide so he won't have a "worse" fate than death when he realizes that Dracula is the killer (paralleling Jonathan choosing to climb and fall to death rather than become one of the "semi-demons" by the Three). Dracula targets Mina to become a vampire, despite knowing she's been married for months. She's expected to turn Jonathan, since vampires first target their loved ones (see vampire Lucy beaconing Arthur). The poison doesn't operate differently based on sexual purity and gender. In fact, in Balkan folklore anyone who is not a prepubescent child can turn, hence why in rural Serbia and Bulgaria people would check any adult's grave every 3 and 7 years post-death. (7 because if a vampire went around undetected past that, they could leave their homeland and spread.)

On that note, I'd have given the consequences of vampirism to be more dire than "now you have sick superpowers and a liquid diet." There's a reason why that was the main horror instead of death.

YES. That's an excellent point. I've always thought that that was kind of bullshit; imo it was a cheap plot idea to get that scene with Seras and the Cheddar priest before Alucard arrives and does HIS whole virgin shtick. It does have a plot point later, where Integra starts to suspect about artificial vampires because of the ghouls they find being so young in age they shouldn't have become ghouls; it was an interesting plot point, but also the whole "a male vampire can only turn female virgin humans" and vice-versa thing is kinda bullshit because we literally have an intersex character in the show?? What kind of vampire would we need to turn Heinkel into one???

In the additional time we could've given Seras, we could've explored the nature of vampirism more. Maybe it changes you so fundamentally that you feel rotten and turned into a creature so vile you'd be repulsed. Maybe it makes you give into your deepest darkest wants; Seras is someone with a lot (and I mean a LOT) of internalized rage and trauma; what if the extremely violent and sadistic side we saw her get in her moments of bloodlust were what she could become if she wasn't careful? The Cheddar priest was a rapist and a mass murderer, the Bonny and Clyde vampires killed entire families in a power trip— is that what most people would become if they were infected? The idea of such destruction is terrifying; most people hold hidden resentment and power fantasies that they don't act upon because of obvious societal cohabitation and maturity. Imagine if everyone just started to act upon those unrealistic feelings of destruction and anger that all of us have. If I started to attack family members and loved ones because of some hidden anger and blame I feel, or tried to make them into That too. It'd be terrifying and truly something more than just "anthropophagic predator" and "liquid-based diet monster" imo.

[see-arcane]

A thing about this "Jonathan is too nice and boring to write Mina explore her more gothic romance side with" claim is that to me, personally, a bright eyed 9-5 guy who collects factoids to share, wins hearts with "his gentleness and his sweetness" and won't even raise his voice, let alone his hand, and gradually goes from that point to the extreme opposite point of declaring "If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell, I would do it!" because of Love, is way more compelling to explore romance with than all those guys who have always been violent or dabbling with the dark side anyways (e.g Vlad didn't get corrupted by love, he as was already violent and impaling people, Hyde was always violently killing people, him killing for her is nothing, etc). Jonathan is who actually radically changed because he's in love; when Renfield dies, Jonathan becomes the old madman. If you want a character for her to explore something wilder with, Mina has already bagged him.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jonathan Harker is the embodiment of, "The power of Love does not automatically mean something good or even sane."

Love has this man blaspheming in a universe where God and Hell are proven facts. He's standing in the queue to talk terms with Mephistopheles. He's actively planning anywhere between 1 - 5 whole murders and a prospective eternity of feeding on humanity with his vampire wife if things don't work out with the Best Case 'Slay the Monster' Scenario.

Out of love~ 💕

This man's (very nearly realized!) corruption arc is caused explicitly by how much he loves Mina Murray Harker more than literally every other soul on Earth, more than The Right Thing to Do (c), more than allies or innocents or Heaven or Earth.

Mina bagged the guy whose only real holy trinity is her, Eros, and Eris.

God and the Devil are already dead to him for what they did to her, so the latter two had to step in.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Tagged by my dear @awildwickedslip! I think I did this one a couple years ago and it's not like I've published much fic since then, but it's maybe an interesting exercise to do it again without looking at my earlier answers first.

1. How many works on AO3?

115.

2. Total word count on AO3?

320, 935.

3. Top five fics by kudos?

Shattered Mirrors - Jonathan in Dracula's castle, Yuletide story (2009) - 376

Make It Through the Wintertime - Hadestown!Persephone backstory, Yuletide story (2016) - 345

To Burn the Castle Down - Jonathan kills Mina angst, really melodramatic (2008) - 312

Compromise - Mina/Dracula/Jonathan darkest timeline train story, the start of my only completed novel length fic ever (2009) - 273

Minor Initiations - basically the same premise as Compromise with Mina and Jonathan's roles reversed. and the story is much more of a mess. (2009) - 231

I included the actual kudos numbers because I rather appreciated that @awildwickedslip did; there's something interesting about that demystifying transparency.

You'll see that these are almost all 15+ years old, with the one exception being the fluke of writing a Yuletide story for what was at the time about to become a pretty popular musical. 20 years of writing in extremely tiny fandoms!

4. What fandoms do you primarily write for?

Historically it's been overwhelmingly Dracula alongside scattered multifandom endeavors of which Shakespeare plays and various Greek mythology versions have been the closest to consistent. I now have substantial WIPs in other fandoms which for a change were created less than 100 years ago, and we'll see what happens there.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Somewhat erratically. I do try! I feel so fortunate with the comments I receive.

6. Angstiest ending?

I think most of my fics end with someone either dying or resigning themselves to some kind of life of profoundly restricted choices. Right now the one that's coming to mind is Enthralled By Destiny, one of my Sade stories which is also really a Bluebeard story.

7. Fic with the happiest ending?

I mostly write happy endings only when I get Yuletide assignments requesting them, and then I struggle all the way because it is just not my strength at all. This past year my assignment was quite literally to give Macbeth and Lady Macbeth a happy ending in which they didn't do evil things and I went sort of out of my mind about it but I did manage something. Caucus-Race, my 2019 Yuletide assignment for Alice in Wonderland, came more easily.

8. Do you get hate?

Not really. I'm lucky and write in tiny fandoms and also am pretty conflict avoidant on the internet. I've intermittently gotten some frustrating responses about the ways I write about abuse dynamics in my Dracula stories but not much for a while. I have a sense that in this post-Dracula Daily era there are some people who very much don't like the kind of fic I write, but that's fine as long as people keep it to themselves.

9. Do you write smut?

I do not!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Rarely, when I think there's something interesting to be said with them. I tend to get more crossover ideas than I actually write.

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! I've read a few fics that seemed very clearly inspired by mine, but that's a sweet thing even if uncredited.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Well...

14. All time favorite ship?

To write or read or just to have exist in the world? To write, by my numbers, it's certainly Mina/Dracula/Jonathan. There are a number of other ships which really compel me conceptually and for which hopefully I will write/finishing writing more in the future.

15. WiPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

So many. Philomela's Tapestry and Furious Docility were both things I posted with the knowledge that they would probably never be finished, just making the judgment call that if even a couple people got something out of reading the parts I had written it was worth putting them up. Of the dozens of unpublished WIPs whose fate is not yet determined it is perhaps better not to speak.

16. Writing strengths?

Interior experiences of violence (perpetrating or experiencing); selecting telling details; complicated relational dynamics; bittersweet moods

17. Writing weaknesses?

Smut; happy endings; characters speaking in more casual/modern tone/voice; finishing things

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I don't feel great about doing it in a language I don't know well, and Ancient Greek dialogue is just show-offy and rarely useful. I've talked about this in fic commentaries, but several parts of Compromise have highly plot and character relevant moments of characters switching between languages, and I ultimately made use of the choice to keep it all in English to what I hope was interesting effect.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Lord of the Rings. It was Sauron/Galadriel.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

For a long time to come I think it's going to be the Compromise series, taken as a whole.

Tagging, if they'd like to do it, @kareenvorbarra @child-of-hurin @mysikrolik @poorshadowspaintedqueens @tomatowrites

[thegoatsongs]

Van Helsing on Oct 4, on the phonograph: My friends the Harkers. I am on my knees begging for you to take the day off while the rest of us investigate. Spend time of quality, as you say. Have a lot of water. Friend John how do I turn this off.

Jonathan and Mina: Let's review the October documents, that could be useful and a good distraction.

Mina's documents for Jonathan to read: "I am crying constantly because Jonathan is keeping secrets from me. I'm having Stange Dreams and memory gaps that resemble Jonathan's and Lucy's. But I don't want to upset him with dreams. I'm so lonely. I'll keep acting cheerful and seek intimacy from him so to not reveal my dark thoughts."

Jonathan's documents for Mina to read: "I told Van Helsing I would sell my soul to kill Dracula. I have decided that, if it comes to it, to dwell in what I know Hell incarnate is, for eternity, to never leave Mina alone in the dark."

Jonathan and Mina: ...Welp.

[serial-serializednovelreader]

I think that adaptations who leave Quincey out or make him a horrible person (see 2020 Dracula) miss the point. He's not just a comic relief. he's the oathmaker. He swears to Lucy when she rejects him he'll always be her friend, and he follows through. He swears to Mina he'll not rest until SHE rests, and he follows through. He swears he will kill Dracula to Jonathan, and they shake hands, and he follows through. He gives Dracula one of the two fatal bows, and bleeds and dies, like he swore he would, for those he loves.

Wow, Anon. That was beautiful. You came to my inbox, absolutely destroyed me, and I'm thanking you for it. /pos

You're so right, though. He is the oathmaker, he follows through on his promises no matter what. Also, the Oathmaker is such a cool title is that a thing I missed?? Can that be what we call him forever now if we don't already??

But here I am, doing the exact same thing as the producers/directors, writing him off as comic relief (I did a little more than that, but still)!! I am truly sorry to Quincey, he is not just that and he never was. So thank you, Anon, for reminding me again why I love him so much. Perhaps one day, there will be an adaptation where he's actually appreciated.

As a side note, they made him a horrible person in 2020 Dracula?! Ugh, I started watching it and could not get through it after they killed Jonathan off -- I didn't care if they resurrected him or what, I was done. I just couldn't keep watching Now I don't want to do it even more if they ruined Quincey too!!!! BBC stop trying to be edgy with classic literature challenge (impossible). What are they going to do next? Make a Jane Eyre series where Jane's the wife in the attic the whole time? I shouldn't even write that cause they'll probably think "wow, that's a great idea!" :/

[ariaofsorrows]

i really liked richternette in Castlevania Nocturne, so here’s my interpretation of their descendants in that universe

NOTES BELOW:

Laura:

just like her OoE counterpart, she is a jeweler. She uses her earth bending powers to cut rocks/geodes and bend metals. she sells her items with a promise of bringing people luck and happiness

i'm a big shalaura truther, so she a big ol' lesbian

she loves having cats around, she'll usually let strays into her shop

she has Juste's love of reading, it is her off-work hobby

although she is a non-combatant, she often consults with her ancestors (+Sara Trantoul) to help craft weapon enhancements (think: platinum tip, yellow stone, etc.)

just like her game counterpart, she's very sweet and outgoing

AND like her game counterpart, she makes jewelry so that the girl she has a crush on can smile more

she's the youngest, and doted on by her family

although she might not have taken up vampire hunting like her siblings, years of mastering her craft have made her quite strong. she doesn't look like it, but she will fuck you up a thousand ways

Julius:

as Castlevania's H-town Hottie, Julius is from Texas

when he was little, his parents were killed by a cult wanting to resurrect [INSERT VAMPIRE HERE] while they were in the US. as a result, he remained to receive further training from Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin.

Annette's magic is incorporated in his version of the Grand Cross. Instead of a pillar of fire, like Richter, it is a pillar of fire with its own gravitational pull, tearing up the earth and walls, if they're made stone and/or metal. exactly like his game counterpart

i hope a female love interest is never introduced for Julius, because he's just not hetero. damn

he does something in Louisiana, i just don't know what

He becomes a loving peepaw mentor to Soma

1999 was a very bizarre summer for him. he can't tell you why, though. He also recognizes Mina by her last name

update: i forgot his scarf

[transmutationisms]

do you have more dracula thoughts? i've read the book and honestly the chapters i enjoyed the best were jonathan harker's letters and then it went downhill.

i actually think the most interesting bits To Me have to do with lucy, her mother, and her vampirism [incest goggles on]

i've always seen lucy's choice of preying on children as a reenactment of her relationship with her mother, obviously with roles reversed. when lucy and her mother are both alive, there's a bodily blurring of identity between the two of them: sharing in each other's sicknesses, to the point where the other characters end up lying to each of them about the other's condition, for fear of transmitting / worsening the illness that way. i think what lucy does by preying on children, specifically, as a vampire is essentially create that same maternal relationship, with the blurring of bodies now rendered literal by the supernatural elements of the genre. lucy never progressed past the attachment to her mother by cementing an attachment to a husband; so, as a vampire, all she can do is recreate this dynamic with the children by killing them. we're meant to understand she wants a family, but that desire has been perverted by her transformation into a monster; however, i'd argue this goes beyond just wanting a child and has to do with her unresolved grief about being a child herself. vampiric feeding in the novel is sexual---more obviously with dracula and jonathan/lucy/mina, but nevertheless it's established as an act of both consumption and consummation. so, for lucy to act out motherhood in this specific way is both central to the horror that stoker is trying to convey (in this way, a pretty openly reactionary appeal to the sanctity of the family!) and i think tells us quite a bit about how these filial relationships actually function and what they entail.

the obvious connection here is the number of times dracula is described as having a "childlike" mind, and particularly how this childishness manifests as his desire to kill the men specifically so he can possess 'their' women (i don't have page numbers but he says this toward the end lol). what dracula wants is, on the surface and in the minds of the male characters, a type of possession quite different to a sanctioned legal heterosexual marriage. however, i'd suggest that for readers, just as lucy's vampirism is not a deviation from maternality but a supernatural intensification of it, so is dracula's desire to steal away and possess the female characters a vampiric version of nuclear coupling that doesn't introduce any new elements to the arrangement, only problematises its already existing ones. his "childishness" is therefore a combination of projection on the part of the human characters, and stoker's partially-baked engagement with certain orientalist ethnological discourses about individual psychology as a recapitulation of the progress or decline of a civilisation.

i also wrote a bit about the sci-fi elements and medicine of dracula but those are further down in this tag :-) i honestly wasn't blown away by the book (esp not by stoker's prose) but, it was entertaining and it's such a cultural touchpoint that i felt like it was an informative read regardless.

[vickyvicarious]

As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there till I fell asleep.

Jonathan's sheer rage is really notable here. I imagine at least a part of it is the sight of Dracula in his own clothes once again, after what happened last time. He also doesn't attempt to watch for Dracula's return at all, and while his stated reasoning is certainly a possible part of it, I wonder if he also simply doesn't want to have to bear witness again if Dracula returns with another victim. After all, despite the library being listed as a secondary safe place to sleep, Jonathan hasn't really done so before (except when he was locked in). But he knows it is a safe place, and while still nearby, it seems to be not right next to Dracula's room. If Dracula does bring back another child (which is by no means guaranteed) then even if he can't help, Jonathan at least won't have to listen as they are killed.

But with his rage and his desire to try and stop Dracula harming others, you might think he would want to be closer, right? Again, some of it is that self-preservation instinct. But his line about "no weapon wrought alone by man's hand" tells us he doesn't think he could, even if he had much more firepower than he actually does. Jonathan has had lots of experience with various strengths and abilities of vampires, but doesn't know their weaknesses. He's figured out that Dracula didn't like the crucifix, and 'sleeps' during the day, but that's about it. He may believe only some kind of holy weapon could even harm him (not wrought alone by man's hand). And he's not wrong about that, at least when a vampire is active. All the methods Van Helsing lists later are intended for use when a vampire is already weakened by the time of day/in a 'sleeping' state - even the stake, beheading, and 'sacred bullet' are all only listed as options to kill a vampire in their coffin. The most that seems doable while they are awake, at least that we ever see in the book, is to ward them off in one way or another. The crucifix and communion wafers aren't pleasant and the vampires avoid touching them but they don't seem to actually physically burn/scar in the same way they did Mina. Now, that may simply be because the vampires never touched any of those holy objects long enough, but regardless, Jonathan's instinct here isn't really wrong per say. Just not complete.

If he is convinced of this, then why attack Dracula in his dirt box tomorrow? Well, he's in the heat of rage and guilt at knowing what Dracula will unleash on many other people. It's the same as the other day, really. When Jonathan sees or hears someone else being hurt, he can't help but try to do something, even if he doesn't really believe it will get anywhere. In this entry, that isn't happening. And it's no guarantee that Dracula will bring back another victim; he's gone out multiple other times without seeming to have done so, after all. Not to mention the main reason: Jonathan says above that he would still try to kill Dracula if he had a weapon - he just is afraid it wouldn't work.

[bluecatwriter]

28. How they feel about [insert character]

Jack -> Jonathan, Mina, Lucy

each he hasn't known for ages like he does the others! hope this isn't lots!

Ooh, thank you! I love getting lots of asks— it's enrichment for my enclosure. ;)

Jonathan: Jack first meets Jonathan the way we do, through reading his words, and he is smitten. He rightly sees and appreciates how incredibly brave Jonathan was during his time at the castle, and Jack is ready to meet the true embodiment of Strong Young Manhood. He's surprised when Jonathan turns out to be a "quiet, businesslike gentleman," but is already using physiognomy to determine that Jonathan is "uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face." He's surprised, but not disappointed, and his admiration steadily grows over the course of the canon events as Jonathan proves himself to be everything Jack wishes he could be: singlemindedly devoted to an unselfish cause, passionate, fighting for his true love. I like to think that Jack's hero-worship hits an almost unbearable peak during their week waiting in Varna— with Jack crushing on Jonathan and badly flirting all the time (with neither him nor Jonathan realizing that his weird behavior is crushing/flirting) to the point where Jonathan wants to strangle him. I don't think Jack ever loses his starry-eyed view of Jonathan, no matter how many years pass.

Mina: Ah, Mina! She is the first female friend Jack has ever had, and so his mind keeps wildly trying to categorize her into a box that fits. They are best friends; they are soulmates; they are siblings; they are spouses from another timeline— his mind keeps rattling between all these options, with none of them quite fitting the intensity of his feelings for her. They get along great and trust each other with their hearts right from the beginning, but Jack also has a lot of patriarchal attitudes ingrained in him, and so his natural leaning toward treating her as an equal keeps getting sidetracked by his idea that she must be "protected." He would gladly die for her, or kill for her. He also would kind of like to be her...

Lucy: Jack's relationship with Lucy is one of my favorite character arcs of the whole book! I like to think there was a certain spark between them when they met, but it mostly took the form of Lucy being intrigued by him and Jack being amazed that a young woman was paying any attention to him (rather than doing what others had done, which was awkwardly excuse themselves from the conversation when he started staring at them). He immediately jumped from, "We can have a conversation" to "She should be my wife," and decided to propose while he had the courage, since he knew that she wouldn't be free for long. Getting rejected was devastating, but not unexpected; to him at this point, Lucy is more of an idea than a person: a chance at the heterosexually-married life he thinks he's "supposed" to have. The longer he's away from her, the more abstract she becomes in his mind. But then, but then! Arthur calls for his help, and he has to decide whether or not he meant it to Lucy when he said he'd be a friend to her. And he did mean it, and for the first time, he is seeing Lucy as a person, not as a hope for his own future. He's definitely not perfect in the way he handles every situation, but he sacrifices a lot of his time, effort, emotion, expertise, and blood in order to help her. He checks in on her between his full-time job; he sits with her while she sleeps to keep her from nightmares; he helps bridge the gap between Arthur, who's torn between Lucy and his father; he keeps silent vigil when Lucy breaks down crying. I think in a very meaningful way, Lucy is the one who teaches Jack how to love. I think that in time, they could have been really good friends. :'(

Thanks for giving me the chance to ramble!

(Ask game here)

[yallemagne]

Note that Dracula does not actively retaliate against Jonathan. He retaliates against the letter, for sure, but he does not punish Jonathan exactly as one would expect. He keeps the act up. Which is possibly an even worse punishment.

Jonathan already knows about the Romani, which is interesting. Of course, functionally, Bram is giving us world-building and using Jonathan as a vehicle for that, but the description of the Romani is not one that would lend to too much confidence that they would help Jonathan, as they are clearly aligned, however knowingly, with the Count.

Who must have told Jonathan about them? Possibly one of his previous hosts, but I opt to say it was the Count.

Imagine that: Jonathan inquires about the only staff he has seen so far in Dracula's lands, and Dracula's answer is to squash Jonathan's hope by saying those "lawless" men answer only to himself. However, Jonathan still tries, he can't let himself give into his despair and give up without trying such an obvious means of escape. He knows that, in all likelihood, Dracula could be lying when he says these people are unlike the locals that helped Jonathan in the past. Though, Jonathan still takes precautions to make sure the full extent of what he knows isn't revealed if this is a dead end.

Unfortunately, the Romani are aligned against Jonathan, but possibly not with ill intentions. In all likelihood, they don't know Dracula's nature, or, if they do, they have to ignore it out of desperation, because no one else would ever employ them. It is serve Dracula or starve. They parallel Jonathan, in a way. They see a frantic man trying to appeal to them in a foreign language, and all they can do is accept what they believe he might be saying and continue on with their work.

There's also the possibility that it is more of Dracula's duplicity. Who is to say the man that took Jonathan's letters and payment did not parse Jonathan's meaning? Perhaps he did but was killed on his way to deliver them to a post office. And Dracula reframes it as the men being completely loyal to him. The belief, then, is not that sending more shorthand letters through them is dangerous because the Count will intercept them himself, but that the Romani will deliver them to the Count whether out of ignorance or malice. The latter is quite hopeless. It means that Jonathan cannot get by on the grace of others-- that the only humans he has seen in so long are either unknowing or uncaring of the danger he is in.

Dracula burns the letter but allows the inconspicuous one to be sent. He's mocking Jonathan for his attempt, letting his message be sent but not the one that matters.

"The letter to Hawkins—that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again?" He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. 

He, once again, reframes the situation. Oh, if Jonathan had simply written all he wanted to say clearly in that letter to Mina, there would have been no issue with it, since Jonathan's letters are sacred. Never mind the desecration of Dracula opening the letter to Hawkins. He then forces Jonathan to participate in the mockery by having him reseal the envelope.

When he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked.

Remember Dracula's warning from before?

"Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then"—He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. [May 12]

Locking Jonathan in the study now is a passive threat that, if Jonathan does not stay in line, Dracula will relinquish his protection over him. Though the study is presumably one of the safe rooms, there is only guaranteed safety if Dracula provides it.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said:— "So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me; but you will sleep, I pray."

Dracula locks Jonathan in the study so he has no choice but to fall asleep there and not in his room. Jonathan is only able to go back to his room once Dracula comes in to retrieve him. Before, Dracula placed the guarantee of Jonathan's safety in his own hands. "If you do this, if you don't do this..." But now he's taking it back. "If I decide you must die sooner than promised, you shall."

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

Sleep is only a short reprieve from Jonathan's waking nightmare. He can't rely on the help of his fellow humans, Dracula can and will take back his hospitality on a whim-- Jonathan has nothing to hope for except a night of dreamless sleep.

... I reframe the latter half of May 28 in my fic Orice-- *gets shot*

[anncanta]

***

@alma37

There is one more thing in the ending of ‘Dracula’, which probably seemed so obvious to me that I almost never said it. The point is that the final scene, the moment with sex, represents not only the expression of Dracula's feelings but – perhaps most of all – Agatha's own desire.

It's hard to explain. We saw those understandable coincidences (which are never coincidences, especially in Moffat's writing) in other episodes where Dracula drinks someone's blood. Just drinking blood is one thing, especially in order to satisfy physical hunger. Here we are not talking about hunger at all, and not about the process of drinking blood as such. We see two people between whom a very specific dialogue is going on. Very precisely and openly spoken one. A dialogue in which the words are so carefully chosen that no one is left in doubt about what we are witnessing.

Someone has already noted that of all Dracula's victims, only Agatha sees him in her dream, and more than openly in the finale. And we, I hope, will talk about this again. But it is important to remember that Dracula ‘gets’ out of his victims their secret thoughts and desires, something that they may not always admit to themselves.

Remember the conversation between Agatha and Jonathan? Jonathan is obviously ashamed of his dreams about Mina. This is clear from Agatha's words. If Jonathan had been ashamed to talk about these dreams, she would have said so, ‘There is no shame in sharing this with us. It is not only what you did in Dracula's castle that is important, but also everything you thought about and what you felt, right down to your fantasies and dreams.’ She literally says this when they return to her question about whether he had sexual intercourse with the Count. And then she suddenly drops her usual pragmatic tone and begins to talk about dreams as heaven in which we can sin without fear of being punished.

I think this is the same pragmatism, only in relation to something else – ‘stop being ashamed of your dreams and tell me about them.’ Agatha sees perfectly well who Jonathan is, and she understands perfectly well that if he decides that talking about something is wrong or ‘undignified’, he will never tell – even if she threatens to cut him into pieces. Therefore, she, like a smart investigator, uses reasonable tactics that will help her counterpart talk.

Jonathan's dream and its meaning are clear to Agatha precisely because she is looking from the outside. She doesn't notice her own infatuation with the Count – until she stumbles upon Mina's shocked look in response to the words that ‘Dracula is the best among vampires,’ and immediately corrects herself – ‘the most successful one.’ She can see a situation, though: Dracula gives the victim what he wants. And Moffat and Gatiss want us to remember this. Then this will be repeated several times, but not as clearly as with Jonathan.

In this context, by the way, Zoe's reaction is interesting. Dracula, just like with Agatha, is quite frank with her and, unlike other victims, drags Zoe ‘to his home.’ But there she reacts like everyone else – immediately manifesting her desires. ‘You are killing me?’ And, just like with the others, Dracula gives her what she wants, ‘It doesn't have to hurt.’

But let's return to Agatha. From what we've seen, it's clear that the ending is a gift for her because that's what she wanted. Whether she realized it or not, whether she thought it was normal or unacceptable, she wanted to make love to him. And he wanted it too.

That's why the ending is so harmonious. And so even those who don't like it conceptually often can't stop rewatching this part.

Such is the power of art.

[scoobydoodean]

Thinking about 4.05 "Monster Movie" and how the shifter (Lucy) who dresses up as Dracula fixates on Jamie and Dean, casting Jamie as Mina and Dean as Jonathan Harker—Mina's fiance—the righteous hero who, with Van Helsing, saves Mina from Dracula.

The last time we really focused on the POV of a shifter was 1.06, where our shifter was a Dean parallel. This time I think our shifter represents Sam—or rather, the shifter represents Sam’s feelings about his own monsterhood, and the occasional envy he feels toward Dean—Dean who is cast by the envious shifter as righteous hero who "gets the girl" (but not this time, Harker!) In season 4, Dean will be given the title “The righteous man”. The same angels calling him that will call Sam “The boy with the demon blood” and “abomination”.

Opening on the scene where Dean has been dressed in lederhosen and tied up by the shifter:

DEAN looks at a portrait of a woman’s face on the wall which resembles LUCY. DRACULA She is beautiful, no? Bride number three from the first film. She never got the acclaim that she deserved. Which is why I chose her shape, her form, to move among the mortals unnoticed. To listen to the cricket songs of the living. That is when I discovered my bride had been reborn in this century.

The shifter wanted to fit in—to be perceived as normal—so they chose Lucy’s shape. It isn't difficult to connect that desire for normality with Sam's initial desire for normality. But the shifter discovered Mina (Jamie) and then everything changed.

In “Monster Movie”, the shifter initially despaired of their monsterhood, but monster movies gave the shifter a sense of dignity—a taste of power.

DRACULA "Real" is being born this way. Different. "Real" is having your dad call you "monster" -- it's the first time you hear the word. And he tries to beat you to death with a shovel. Everywhere I ran, everywhere I tried to hide, people found me, dragged me out, attacked me. Called me "freak," called me "monster." Then I found them. The great monsters. In their movies, they were strong. They were feared. They were beautiful. And now I am like them. Commanding. Terrifying.

I'm immediately reminded of a speech Sam gives in the previous episode, explaining why he's decided to embrace demonic power (4.04):

SAM I've got demon blood in me, Dean! This disease pumping through my veins, and I can't ever rip it out or scrub it clean! I'm a whole new level of freak! And I'm just trying to take this - this curse... and make something good out of it. Because I have to.

In Dracula, Mina was saved from Dracula at the end of the story by Harker and Van Helsing. Lucy wasn't able to be saved—she was a victim of Dracula’s, who started out a kind, soft hearted woman, but was killed by Dracula and reborn as a monster who fed on children. She was subsequently destroyed by Van Helsing.

In our parallel, I don't think Mina (played by Jamie) parallels a person so much as Mina represents an ideal or desire. Mina represents "getting to be the hero"—Mina represents the capacity for redemption.

What the shifter (and Sam) don't know is that redemption is something Dean is also seeking:

JAMIE That must suck. I mean, you're giving up your life for this terrible... I don't know, responsibility. DEAN Last few years, I started thinking that way, and, uh, it started sort of weighing on me. Of course, that was before... A little while ago, I had this – let’s call it a near-death experience. Very near. JAMIE sits down next to DEAN. DEAN And, uh, when I came to... things were different. My life's been different. I realize that I help people. Not just help them, though. I save them. I guess it's -- it's awesome. It's kind of like a gift... like a mission. Kind of like a... a mission from God.

Dean is on a mission from God—and we as forward-looking viewers who know Dean tortured souls in hell have a better understanding of why Dean ties himself to that mission—as a form of redemption.

Monsters on the other hand... monsters don't get the girl—monsters don't get redemption—monsters don't save the day. Harker and Van Helsing save the day, and Harker (Dean) gets the girl.

DEAN You do realize what happens at the end of every monster movie? DRACULA Ah, but this movie is mine. And in it, the monster wins. The monster gets the girl. And the hero, he’s... electrocuted. And tonight, Jonathan Harker, you will be my hero.

This is, in some sense, our Sam from 4.04 manifesting a win—manifesting becoming the hero through monstrosity. Dean doesn't get to be the hero this time.

SAM Dean, I need her to help me kill Lilith. I know you can't wrap your head around it, but maybe one day you'll understand. I'm the only one who can do this, Dean. DEAN turns back around. DEAN No, you're not the one who's gonna do this. SAM Right, that's right, I forgot. The angels think it's you. DEAN You don't think I can? SAM No. You can't. You're not strong enough. DEAN And who the hell are you? SAM I'm being practical here. I'm doing what needs to be done.

Sam wants Dean to take a back seat. In a sea of motivations for lying and working with Ruby, one of them—most certainly—is that Sam wants to be the hero and wants Dean to not be the hero... and in some sense, this also fits with shifter who tries to force Dean into a role—who insists Dean play the role of Harker... who, while one of the story's heroes, also plays the part of the damsel in distress at various points in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Crucially though, Sam isn't just represented by Lucy and the shifter in "Monster Movie". Sam is also associated with Van Helsing—or rather—when Sam arrives to free Dean and Jamie, the shifter shouts,

DRACULA You will never be Van Helsing!

This is Sam's despair in the mouth of the shifter. Sam could never be a traditional hero. He's unclean—he could never be a hero like the badass Van Helsing—the closest thing the Dracula novel has to a hunter (knowledgeable, strong, tenacious, clever). Sam could never go on a quest like that.

SAM Knights of the Round Table. Had all of King Arthur's knights, and they were all on the quest for the Holy Grail. And I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling, and— and light streaming over his face, and— I remember... thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I'm not clean. I mean, I w— I was just a little kid. You think... maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that— I had... demon blood in me, and about the evil of it, and that I'm— wasn't pure?

The thing is, Sam is paralleled with the shifter as Lucy (desperation for normality) and as Dracula (despair, reclaiming monstrosity as his own), but Van Helsing is also a part of Sam too. Van Helsing represents Sam's ability to choose his destiny—Sam's ability to choose to be a hero, despite how he's despaired of ever being clean. He just has to realize it's his choice—that life is not a maze he has no choice but to run through. He is not unclean. His destiny is not defined by Azazel's blood.

JAMIE Ever think that maybe you're lonely because you kill people? DRACULA Or I kill people because I’m lonely.

Sam continues through season 4 with this same frame of mind in a sense—not in the sense that he's killing people (though... at one point, he will) but in the sense that his actions are someone else's fault and are out of his control. And yet, the capacity to be Van Helsing and not the monster who despairs remains.

[dross-the-fish]

I get what you're saying but Dracula attacked Mina to hurt Jonathan, it's Jonathan he was after.

I know Jon is a fan favorite but please, I am begging at this point, care about the other characters. For pete's sake. Every post I make about Dracula these days results in somebody coming at me and going "WHAT ABOUT JONATHAN?!" and it's starting to get old. I want to talk about my AU, and my thoughts on literature and these characters are part of that but some of you guys make it a real chore because you can't put down your blorbo for five seconds. Also no, I don't think Dracula biting Mina was exclusively about Jonathan and I certainly don't write it that way myself. Dracula bit Mina because the group was plotting against him. They were coming after him for what happened with Lucy. He was also drawn to Mina individually, similar to how he targeted Lucy, because targeting women is what he does. It wasn't just about Jonathan, he had beef with ALL of them by that point.

Also I really dislike making Mina's suffering about Jonathan. Even if it could be argued that Jonathan was the reason Mina is still the one who got bitten. Y'all have got to stop making Mina's trauma about Jonathan and actually let it be hers. There's a trope called "women in refrigerators" that describes a phenomenon where female characters are brutalized or killed to create drama for the male characters and the way some people in this fandom engage with Mina feels like they're embracing that unironically. Even if Mina being attacked was ostensibly about Jonathan it shouldn't be and anyone who frames it as such should be criticized for doing so.

[beevean]

hecula and harkula for the ship ask game please? 👀(movies/books/series/games whatev, your choice)

:)

Book Harkula and game Hecula get the same placement:

because I may be predictable, but I am also coherent 👍

(the reason I didn't go full 100% on "makes sense" is that I leave that tiny room for ships that are peak wholesome romance. obviously. obviously these two ships are less than wholesome.)

Anyway, creepy gross old bastard playing sick mental games with his favorite pretty boy stuck in his castle goes brrrrrrrr <3

I don't know how things go in Dracula 2020 (Jonathan becomes undead I think?), but in the book the Jonathan section is a marvel of realistic horror, of genuinely scary subtle abuse where you can see how finely Dracula is working Jonathan, destroying his sense of reality and making him feel all sorts of small and vulnerable and dependent on him. While I love how Jonathan manages to run away and the way he struggles with his trauma (honestly written better than in many modern works), at first being in deep denial for the shock but then getting ready to kill God if He stands in the way of him and shanking that monster, I'm also interested in AUs where Dracula manages to turn his new crush in a twisted, unholy marriage :) doing everything in his power to replace Mina in his heart :) corrupting this fine young upstanding man :) or does he :)

And well. I don't know what else I can say about Hecula. It's just. the narrative of the golden child who feels so loved and accepted only to realize that he's losing his sense of self, his dignity, his humanity for a cruel mentor and so decides to run away :) but the lingering effects of his servitude are always there, always affecting him and his life :) and Dracula didn't turn Hector and Isaac into vampires but he did infuse them with part of himself :) and Hector thinking about Dracula as he's dying and when he's renouncing his powers :) and the hints that Dracula did in his own way care about Hector ("the more precious things are...") :) and the narrative parallels of Hector almost falling as low as Dracula :) it's So Clear to me.

And just because I feel petty :P N!Hecula:

And this is my best explanation:

(we call N!Hector "Caesar" and N!Isaac "Abraham" as an inside joke :P)

nah jokes aside, I can tell N!Hector respects and cares about N!Dracula, going so far as to be concerned about his wellbeing regarding Lisa's death. And as much as his plan to revive him is a spit in the face of decent character development, I can at least snicker that ohhh look at him, wanting his master back, that's true love <3 game Isaac would be proud <3

But since N!Dracula is so mean to him and treats him like deadweight and clearly is in a relationship with N!Isaac, it's not as interesting. When I want to indulge in simp who'd die for his lord/lord who only sees his simp as a toy, Isaacula is right there :V

[aster-blogging-dracula]

Honestly I believe you don't need to keep engaging, that person has made another post that shows they have absolutely not read the book, all while claiming that Eggers is "mocking" Dracula (he does not, in any of those links). For example, they say that Jonathan jumps into a river like Thomas, except that does not happen in the book at all. That happens only in the Coppola movie. In the book, he climbs down the walls. And he does not automatically become a hero, because he gets a brain fever, aka becomes a madman for months, until Mina comes and rescues him. Both in the sense of going to Budapest and marrying him, and also by opening his journal and confirming with Van Helsing that his experiences are valid. Without Mina, Jonathan in the book would have always been unable to recover. He's not the masculine hero that the person claims to be.

Also I disagree that him hitting Dracula with the shovel indicates that he's the hero. It indicates that he has courage to fight his fears, uncovering that Dracula is weak during the day in the process. By having a scar on his forehead thanks to Jonathan's bravery that afternoon, the team is able to understand that they have to strike only while the sun is still up. Because when the first mate of the Demeter tries to do the same thing to Dracula, during the night, he strikes thin air.

What is most important to understand is that there is no single hero like that person claims Harker being (and supposedly Eggers mocking). The point is that everybody is needed in order to defeat an ancient evil. Jonathan does not recover on his own, he needs the locals, the nuns, Mina and Van Helsing. Jonathan does not kill Dracula on his own, he needs Quincey Morris. Van Helsing does not kill the vampires of his own, he needs Mina to keep him awake from the trance. The text itself cannot be compiled as it is by Mina without everybody having contributed in gathering all the evidence. And this is also why all those films that depict Van Helsing as the Dracula archnemesis, the one true hero who saves the day fail to understand that what they are trying to do is the equivalent of retelling the Lord of the Rings as the battle between Sauron and Gandalf.

Honestly I also had my doubts on whether or not that person had closely read Dracula the moment they started talking about literary critics (mybe they had read the book and were very into scholarly research or maybe they only knew surface level stuff, maybe it's a third secret thing idk) l but it did not want to assume anything so I tried to adapt my answer to the analysis that they were providing since I understood where they were coming from (although I disagreed) and my target was to make that particular person understand my point (In the end, the discussion ended up on good terms and we both got our point across, which I'm glad of)

My actual personal views of the book are much closer to what you are explaining. After all, it is a book with very complex characters and trying to align everyone with an archetype or a specific idea takes away a lot of sense from the story. But it also means a lot of different analysis can be made about it so I try to keep myself open to all different views on it.

My answers were built around the idea some people(mostly critcs) have that as the story progresses Jonathan is shown to be more active in the quest of killing dracula (although this process is not linear, since as you said he still gets brain fever and needs to be rescued by his wife, which is afterwards inverted when Jonathan is there for mina after Dracula's attack), which to some people indicate his journey from a typical heroine into a typical hero (here the shovel scene would fall on the "hero" category), ending up with him having a child, and is many times interpreted as conventional social norms winning over the confusion that vampirism brings towards gender norms. There is also the analysis of this process as a death and rebirth of the ego (There's way too many interpretations, really). The book is not as black and white as that, of course, since, first of all, there are many other topics to be found (mental illness, immigration, class, religion, etc), and secondly, the characters are written realistically, which means they act like actual people instead of being methaphors that constantly lean towards one political view or the other. (Unfortunately it's probably hard to publish academic articles without centering oneself in one idea and exploiting every possible interpretation around it, which is confusing or misleading to people who engage with the book outside of academy (i suppose, I'm just an engineer idk how literary academia works))

What you said about Jonathan facing his fears is very important point too, I personally think that fear is a more important component of the plot than any archetype or political stance that can be reflected through it. (But that's a whole different topic by itself, I'll make a post about fear (and facing one's fears) in dracula some day)