#worst dracula adaptation by far

[picklepie888]

I will never forgive Dracula (1979) for what they did to Mina.

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Look, I love the Castlevania series and the Netflix adaptation made 3 great seasons ("Um there are 4 seasons" LIKE I SAID, 3 GREAT SEASONS), but we have got to talk about how disappointing it is that the main trio never met or even knew the existence of Hector and Isaac - or honestly, that entire half of the plot. I will forever find it weird that the show set up two related but never intersecting plot threads (and arguably a third, go figure during the worst season).

It's sweet and empowering that both of them found their own ways to live before and after Dracula's death, with Isaac being a total badass and even progressing to a better person despite seeing how unfair, cruel, and rude the world is - to the point that he defeats Carmilla not JUST because she was partly responsible for Dracula's death but because he actually wanted to make the world a better place. But even though Isaac could arguably be founding an entire empire and generation of peace, he and Hector don't even seem to know about Alucard's existence or contributions, let alone Trevor and Sypha.

We can debate Hector and Lenore's fucked up relationship all day, but in the end the two of them DID end up bonding through all the lies and deceit. They were able to actually talk to one another and have the other listen; in the end, both of them were just born in different worlds on different sides. Lenore genuinely seemed to want to settle things peacefully, but she got left behind in a world that valued only overwhelming strength; she decides she can't live as a prisoner even though Hector was no doubt stronger than her for enduring his own imprisonment and subjugation, but I think Lenore was already on her way to losing herself. Despite what she did to Hector, she wanted to at least believe she understood him; even though she was a sympathetic vampire, she still believed knowing enough to control someone was the only way they could be friends - so when it turns out Hector was plotting the downfall of Carmilla and her buddies, unfortunate Lenore had to be betrayed as well. Even if Hector wanted her to live, she was a living contradiction. A vampire who is physically very strong and intimidating, but a woman who other male vampires have looked down upon, and even male humans. A creature who feeds on humans, but one who wants to settle things peacefully. She absolutely had a role in Carmilla's gang of women just surviving, but in Carmilla's mad conquest, she was useless at best and a hindrance at worst.

In the end, Lenore was one of the few vampires that might have been sympathetic to the human side of the argument, but she physically couldn't live like that. I believed Lenore genuinely wasn't capable of turning her whole worldview upside down and aiding humanity in any way - being beneath them. Dracula opened himself up to one human and it destroyed him; he saved Hector and Isaac, but he also sacrificed himself and forced Isaac away, that was the extent of his personal affairs with them. I think it's fundamentally difficult for vampires to adopt human ideologies and empathy, making Alucard the only vampire ally we really have in the series - because he's only half. Unlike Alucard, she is a full vampire. She has a divide that she can't just bridge like he can.

Imagine if Alucard got to meet the only other humans beside his mother who genuinely looked up to and cared about his father. What would Isaac and Hector have to say to the son of the man they had admired and then lost as well? Imagine Alucard meeting another human who may have even fallen in love with a vampire, but who understands how far their worlds pulled each other apart. Or maybe Sypha can relate to having her eyes opened to a world outside her Speaker family. Imagine a discussion with Lenore about what it means to be caught between wanting to make peace with humans and knowing how much harm they cause - her actually getting a sympathetic vampire perspective from someone like Alucard who wouldn't look down on her.

Imagine the tension that could come from Trevor meeting a Forgemaster, Isaac trying to explain his control over Night Creatures and his ability to even make them fight for a sympathetic cause. Both Isaac and Trevor have experience being the outcasts, understanding how awful humans can be, but they both found their way to still fighting for the right thing. Trevor understands why killing Dracula's wife would make him want to purge the world in retribution, but he still knows humans are worth fighting for. Isaac fully abandoned his faith in humanity and believed in Dracula completely, and even THEN he managed to find the good amongst the rabble. Is it right to make Night Creatures from the dead, even if they were bad people? Even if it's to champion a good cause? Even if Hector and Isaac have full control over them without a potential for any sort of rebellion?

What I'm saying is, I love the idea of a new Castlevania series, but nothing will beat the OG season 1 and 2, and season 3 should have been answering questions and tying up loose ends - not going off on at least 3, 4 tangents that were just meant to come out of nowhere and make things shitty again after our happy ending and I guess they're kinda related but not really, so now we can fix the new shitty stuff and have ANOTHER happy ending and avoid showing anything resembling resolutions, just teaser after teaser for the fanfics to finish up.

Anyway so I'm going to the fanfics and if I don't come back, tell the Final Fantasy rants I love them-

[thenightling]

Netflix’s Scrooge: A Christmas Carol

I just got done watching Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, the new animated movie with Luke Evans as Scrooge.

Luke Evans has a fantastic voice but I feel he was woefully underused here.  The commercials didn’t quite reveal it so I didn’t realize this was an animated remake of the Albert Finney Scrooge from 1970 until pretty far into it.  There is a clip of “I like Life” in the trailer but I had forgotten about that song in the 1970 Scrooge musical.  

The main songs it took from the 1970s version was Happiness, I like Life, Thank you Very much, and I’ll begin again. Thank you very much is the song that stuck with me when I watched Scrooge with Albert Finney years ago. 

Leslie Bricusse composed the original Scrooge musical and this animated version had a dedication to him at the end. He passed away last October.    

Much like how when Albert Finney played scrooge at age thirty-four, Luke Evans is only forty-three and still considerably young to be playing the elderly Scrooge.  And when he starts belting out the songs his youth really shines through and doesn’t quite fit the old man who is supposed to be singing.

The CG animation is cute but simple.  There are a few anachronisms and Americanisms that are a bit jarring for any version of a Christmas Carol but I guess they wanted to keep it simple for child viewers.  

There’s a scene toward the beginning when Scrooge says “Merry Christmas” to taunt a toy shoppe owner who is in debt as he tells him the interest he’ll have to pay for delaying his debt to after the holiday.  And that bothered me slightly and it was simply because I can’t imagine the pre-redemption Scrooge saying “Merry Christmas” even when being snarky.

In general it’s sweet.  Not terrible but not the best version of a Christmas Carol. It’s certainly better than that cruel, cynical, awful, 2019 Christmas Carol from the BBC (That was the worst non-musical version of A Christmas Carol I had ever seen).  You can tell this remake of the Scrooge musical was made with children in mind as it gave The Ghost of Christmas Present little pixie-imp henchmen that turn into tiny demon-imps when The Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come arrives. 

I was a little surprised when I realized it was a remake of the Albert Finney musical but done to animation. Somehow I didn’t recognize the “I like life” number in the trailer for the movie.

I think the best thing about this was Luke Evans.  He has a fantastic voice and certainly should be in more musicals. He was underused here and he was the only saving grace to the live action Disney’s Beauty and the Beast live action remake as Gaston.

I think Luke Evans needs to be in more musicals. Hell, I want to see him as Dracula in Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula: The Musical.    

I think I give this version a seventy-five or an eighty.  It might be better than that but I think I’m a little burnt out on Christmas Carol adaptations.  I think Christmas needs a new wholesome ghost story.  A lot of people don’t realize it but Charles Dickens actually wrote a few of them, not just a Christmas Carol. I’d say they should adapt The Goblins who stole a Sexton but that was pretty much just “Prototype Christmas Carol.”   I’d like to see a fresh, new Christmas ghost story.    

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPoM5vpV8IU

[pazodetrasalba]

Vae Victis

Dear Caroline:

Just finished reading yesterday this recommendation of yours. It wasn't bad, but if I am to be sincere, it is up to now the least interesting of your 5 star choices. I imagine this comes as a result of my absence from the world it depicts: what might have been personally relevant for an (ex)finance bro like you is mostly irrelevant for me.

Yes, the book is a bit slow and rambling, and yes, it does accelerate and get more thriller-like once the bids are out (title gives away the resolution, though, if for some reason you had never heard of the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout in the first place). The cast is too big - I actually benefited from watching the movie adaptation before finishing the book so that I could at least make a clear mental picture of the, say, 10 or so main characters.

One way of reading this book (and the popular narrative at the time of the events) is as a story of greed, with stereotyped and villainous figures (the film is much less nuanced than the book, and really goes full-hog in this direction: Ross Johnson is a a snake charmer wallowing in luxury who'd sell his mother for the right price, and Henry Kravis is literally Count Dracula - nobody does 'slightly creepy old dude' better than Jonathan Pryce), the worst of which are Wall Street bankers and lawyers who are out to make a catch with complete disregard for the well-being of businesses, shareholders, workers and public. This is how I would have read it many years ago, in my Marxist years. Now that I have become attuned to the fact that capitalism and markets are (mostly) good and the financial sector is necessary for keeping our social machine well oiled and running, I'd be inclined to make other readings as well.

On a side note -actually, it's not that much in the sidelines-, schools do a very poor job at pushing forward what is an extremely anti-intuitive but truthful view, first espoused by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, and expressed in your own review as "You think about market participants each trying to maximize their profits, and everyone acting in their own interest ends up maximizing total welfare, and that makes sense in a zoomed-out way, and as far as I can tell is not a crazy model of the behavior of companies". But this really beggars belief until you actually see it: it feels no less stupid and false to a smart teenager than religious dogma. On the contrary, the same teenager who reads The Communist Manifesto will find a very believable narrative of the moral and economic progress of History through class conflict, and if he further pursues some basic readings (and remains, as we mostly do, economically illiterate), will also find the theory of surplus value scientific-sounding and a good basis for accusing all capitalists of being exploiters and thieves.

It is, indeed, nothing short of miraculous that individual egoisms actually end up creating a quasi-optimal arrangement for the most part, but I feel Barbarians at the Gate is mostly showing you the scenario when this doesn't actually happen. That is to say, for RJR Nabisco under Johnson's leadership, and through the LBO, it does indeed appear that (quoting you again):

- there is a CEO, who is a guy - there is a board, consisting of a bunch of guys who are friends with the CEO - they all have fiduciary duties and if they fail to meet them they will get yelled at by a judge in Delaware - ??? - shareholder value gets maximized

Love the ???. Actually, if one goes back to those dull, first chapters at the beginning of the book, we do get a glimpse of how companies manage to turn individual egoisms into positive enterprises. The book dwells a lot on the first years of Nabisco and Reynolds tobacco, on how founders made all the right choices of wise investment and expansion, use of local knowledge, ethics, hard work and know-how, treating workers and shareholders well, taking advantage of rising opportunities... It really reads like a guide on what to do, as contrasted with the relative vacuity of what Ross Johnson actually ends up doing. Does he actually create any positive value? Perhaps his best contribution is his rejection of stability and routine, a chaotic undermining of conformity which might help against the inevitable stagnation of consolidated companies, but that appears to be all he does. Yes, he charms board members and presidents, parties hard and lavishes wealth on executives and board members (including himself). on the face of it, all this doesn't seem at all better than its opposite.

I am not economically savvy enough, but moving to LBOs, I imagine one could make the case for them in that they judge company value more efficiently than markets (as seemed to be the case with the stagnantly low value of RJR Nabisco shares), and in that the debt and diet they impose on their companies trim out the fat, the redundant, the inefficient and (once the debt is paid), end with a more economically efficient company that can survive and thrive in the market better. Like all tools, though, they can be misused, making some people very rich (CEOs, their cronies and the lenders) and a lot of people quite miserable (workers and shareholders) through financial trickery and assaults orchestrated through 'phoney money'. It is all a matter of trade-offs, I guess. Still, I like some of the anti-LBO voices: even though the book has no heroes (Johnson might be an anti-hero of sorts), Ted Forstmann comes pretty close (and btw, he become a signatory of the Giving Pledge in 2011). It's a pity the way he's massacred in the movie. And crypto doesn't feel that far away from junk bonds...

The book did have some lovely snippets of humor (loved the private jet piloting Mr. G. Shepherd to safety). As for your belief that "it is reassuring that the whole system seems to kinda work anyway", I fear it seems to be the wrong lesson to learn from all of this; in fact, the book seems peppered with quotes that are the absolutely worst possible lessons one could take, most of them from the lips of Ross Johnson, about disregarding protocols, logic, reason and checks and balances. Your final quote about rows of figures with millions of dollars that no one knows the proper meaning of is actually quite an ominous note to end the review with, a precursor to the apparently very lax and chaotic management of vastly superior sums of money in FTX and Alameda.

Quote:

"It all started with a small lemonade stand in Manitoba,” read one Johnson parody. “The next thing I knew I had sold my mother. The rest was easy.”

P.S.: Among the things you mention that motivate you, "making guys think I am attractive" seems particularly ill-phrased. You are incredibly attractive, Caroline (both as a person and as a woman), so there should be little need of persuasion, except we usually find that these truths and feelings are seldom commutative.

[hrodvitnon]

So, I heard Castlevania Nocturne season 2 is in the works. Big excite! That being said!

I'm overall fine with Nocturne as is if only because I know that Castlevania is no stranger to negative fan feedback whether it's legitimate grievances or petty complaints (and Nocturne is flawed, I won't argue that) – just look at the series history. Simon's Quest being a different sequel like Adventure of Link, 64 being called the worst Castlevania game for years (go watch Ragnarrox's video on it), Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin having an anime art style despite Rondo being just as anime if not more so, Symphony being too easy, Ecclesia being too hard, the very existence of Judgment and its take on the characters, Shadowvania being fine or a God of War ripoff. There will ALWAYS be Castlevania fans who dislike something, whether it's retconning Sonya Belmont or Netflixvania simply existing.

I've also played very few games in the entire series (GBA trilogy, SotN, Order of Ecclesia, Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate, bit of Dracula X) so the changes in Nocturne don't bother me that much if at all, and my general sense of being fine with Nocturne set in the French Revolution boils down to "Rondo was set during that period and France is one of the stages in Bloodlines". It also helps that I don't have as much energy for vitriol in my old by tumblr standards age, and I know adaptations will change things for better or worse... and Nocturne could have been worse. Imagine if Uwe Boll directed Nocturne.

So far Season 1 presents a fast and loose adaptation of Rondo of Blood with elements from Bloodlines and a dash of Aria of Sorrow (the eclipse) and a smidge of Harmony of Dissonance, just as the previous series adapted Dracula's Curse with bits from Curse of Darkness (Hector and Isaac) and Symphony of the Night (character designs and Lisa's death). Nocturne needs to adapt Rondo in order to properly introduce Richter and Maria and set things up for Symphony, obviously. Assuming it goes that far in future seasons, which it might.

But depending on how things go, once Nocturne is finished with Rondo and if it moves on to Symphony, there's a key element of SotN's story that falls apart when you remember that Dracula and Lisa were resurrected at the end of Castlevania Season 4; SotN happens because Richter is possessed and brings back both the Castle and Dracula, but you can't resurrect someone who's still alive, assuming Dracula hasn't died in the interim between Season 4 and Nocturne, and a whole village was being built around the still standing Castle last time we saw it. So what happens then?

An important thing to note is that Lament of Innocence, chronologically the first game in the timeline, happened in Netflixvania; Trevor mentions Leon Belmont, the game's protagonist. Lament is also where we see Dracula's origins not as a Wallachian prince turned vampire, but as Leon's friend Mathias Cronqvist – a fellow crusader who after the death of his wife Elizabetha, became Dracula by taking the soul of the vampire Walter Bernhard into a vampiric treasure called the Crimson Stone, which is basically if a Philosopher's Stone gave you vampirism because that's a kind of immortality. (There's also the Ebony Stone which is a vampire treasure like the Crimson Stone, the colors are important because there's some alchemy in Lament.)

In SotN Alucard describes the Castle as "a creature of chaos. It may take many incarnations." Apparently in the game Dracula's Curse, Dracula made a pact with the Evil God – who may or may not be Satan, somebody at Konami please clarify – to gain the power of Chaos (and also a monster horde), which would neatly explain why Netflix Drac needed a year to prep his assault after Lisa was burned at the stake. In Aria of Sorrow (in which Dracula dies for good in 1999 and is reincarnated as Soma Cruz), the final boss is literally Chaos, and its second form takes the appearance of (among other things) a black stone that flashes red – Castlevania is a creature of Chaos and the center of it is the Crimson Stone, the origin of Dracula's power.

In Dawn of Sorrow, the cult under Celia Fortner created a "perfect replica" of the Castle and wants to make a whole new Dracula; it isn't outright stated iirc, been a while since I played it, but I'm guessing the implication is that Celia created another Crimson Stone to be a new Chaos for the Castle. Plus, with two candidates being groomed for the Dark Lord position (and Soma himself being Dracula reborn and getting involved), someone would have to be sacrificed like Walter was so someone can become Dracula 2.0.

However, I don't recall seeing a Crimson Stone in Netflixvania, which is interesting considering the focus on alchemy once Saint Germain gets involved. Considering how spotty Trevor's knowledge of the Belmont family's history is, he probably didn't know how Dracula became Dracula. Maybe Leon took that knowledge to the grave, or maybe Sypha uncovered the identity of the man who became Dracula years later while she and Trevor raised their child Simon. If Nocturne will one day adapt Symphony, it needs to address the lack of a Dracula to resurrect. Maybe it can take a leaf out of Dawn of Sorrow's book and have a cult just try to make a new Dracula to replace the old one, and the party meets up with the Vlad Tepes Formerly Known as Dracula in order for him to explain how he became what he is and what the cult is doing, not to mention the whole possessed Richter part... or, perhaps the cult mind controls Richter into going through the motions so he can be forced to sacrifice someone, perhaps one of vampiric blood like Alucard, to take on the Dark Lord's mantle. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a Belmont became a Dracula!

[beevean]

top 5 fav NFCV moments and top 5 most hated NFCV moments and top 5 fav NFCV characters and top 5 most hated NFCV characters (I WARNED YOU.)

Isaac forcing Hector to watch Rosaly die was less evil.

Okay. I'll try :)

Top 5 NFCV moments:

5) Carmilla and Hector avoiding the blessed waters moved around by Dracula's castle. Not only it was a dynamic sequence, I admit that Carmilla saying "what the fuck was that" was the only time I legit laughed out loud. The timing was just perfect lmao.

4) Lenore's death. Not only because FUCK YEAH THE BITCH DIED LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO, but it's beautiful, with a gorgeous track, and I like to imagine Lenore killed herself out of fear of becoming like Carmilla, she who wanted to be as human as possible, and not because "wah i don't wanna live like hector". Lenore could have been a good character too if she wasn't used for fetish fuel and rape apologism :)

3) Blue Fangs. By far the rawest, most interesting "CHURCH BAD" scene in the series.

2) Trevor vs. Death. A visual spectacle, and finally, finally the protagonist of the story does something cool and plot-relevant! I also agree that Trevor saying "I love you" to Sypha was just adorable <3

"I'm killing my boy". Lore breaking? Yes. Made Dracula into too much of a woobie? Maybe. Heartwrenching in the context of the show? Absolutely. I am a sucker for McTavish's voice acting, and it is the culmination of Dracula's biggest inner conflict: his virulent hatred for the mankind who took his love from her against the love for his son, and indirectly for Lisa. If only this scene took place in the proper SoTN adaptation...

Top 5 worst moments (how do I choose):

5) The explanation as to why vampires fear crosses. It's Twilight pseudo-science and I can't believe people can take it seriously. It's also emblematic, for me, of how much the series disrespects the religious symbols of the game (that, and ofc the infamous water blessing zombie lol)

4) Everytime Isaac is a dick to Hector. I just hate that guy. He's unpleasantly mean and condescending and we're meant to agree with him when he calls Hector "a simple creature". Go fuck yourself, you Walmart Hector.

3) Dracula and Lisa being brought back and deciding to travel together without telling Alucard anything. bruh. why are we rewarding the dude who slaughtered humans way before lisa even entered the scene. why is lisa okay with what her husband did. why are you breaking the lore like this. why.

2) The Alucard threesome + him pissing on the Japanese not-twins' corpses, for the reasons you said. Pointless, out of nowhere trauma whose resolution was a cheating joke from Greta. bruh

... can I cheat and mention every Lenector scene? Lenore beating Hector up was again torture porn, gratuituously humiliating (dat dick), and only serves to show how cool and stronk Lenore is. Her leashing him up is simply uncomfortable, because it's portrayed as horny and hot instead of being yet another form of torture - Hector seems visibly aroused at points. The sex scene is of course the sex scene. Her humiliating him in front of her sisters is simply gross. The dick jokes are immature and fail at being funny banter. "Oh shush you were having fun" makes me want to stab someone with a plastic spoon, ditto the "parallel" between Hector being lied to by Dracula and Lenore being lied to by Carmilla because oh gosh look how kyoot they are together 🥺 Him protecting her from Isaac is just the last slap in the face towards this character who really deserved better than being torture fetish fuel.

(honorable mention to the "Is this the definition of insanity?" scene, because people keep praising N!Isaac as the character of all time but I only see a brat throwing a tantrum)

Top 5 NFCV characters:

5) Godbrand. The closest thing to a canon Isaac we got, and the only one with a braincell in the joint.

4) Striga. Buff woman who references Berserk <3

3) Trevor. A far cry from his game self, and yes the cliché of the drunkard cynical anti-hero is old, but he never once irritated me. He had a nice arc in S1, a believable tragic backstory, and overall I just felt bad for him when Alucard was a jerk to him.

2) Hector. I love the idea of the character, and he isn't rude or annoying. I was genuinely fascinated by his alien view of the world, and he had potential as an anti-villain without empathy for his fellow humans but still principled, mellow but ruthless when necessary (he did kill his parents after all). The narrative just pisses on him for no good reason.

Sypha. I have nearly nothing bad to say about her lmao. I'm annoyed by her "peeing in a bucket" quote, her moving the Castle on top of the hold was stupid, and she's too OP for my tastes, but she's a genuinely nice girl and her design is so cute and her relationship with Trevor is so adorable <3 best girl. Unironically.

Top 5 most hated NFCV characters:

5) Alucard. ughhhhhhh he's such an arrogant crass jerk! Why does he even have fans! He's ugly to boot!

4) The Japanese not-twins. A complete waste of time, their only narrative purpose was a random threesome, and in their haste to not make the scene incestuous now they're accidentally racist because they look identical despite not being related lol.

3) Isaac. He's flat, rude, contemptuous, full of himself, with a rushed character "arc", never actually regrets his crimes, hypocritical, Islamophobic, with a shoehorned cliché "past slave" backstory, and the narrative won't stop sucking his dick. Hyped to high heavens at the expense of the real Isaac for reasons I do not and never will understand.

2) Carmilla. She's the most shallow, cliché #girlboss you could have written, nothing more than a cartoon villain who wants to conquer the world, and also a stereotypical radfem for no reason. She was irritating in S2, then she peaced out of the story until her death, but not before humiliating canon villain Dracula because I love when OCs get to shittalk about canon characters. I can't believe she unironically said "I'm a queen", fuck off.

Lenore. Do I even need to explain why I despise this manipulative, slimy, smug rapist who gives BDSM a bad name and is shipped with his victim in what is meant to be seen as a cute yet tragic enemies-to-lovers, kindred souls relationship? No words in the English language can convey the sheer resentment I feel for her.

[myfanfictiongarden]

One should really say “Bless the internet” because how else would I ever have heard of Michael Pink´s Dracula ballet, let alone seen the recorded 2018 performance of the Milwaukee Ballet Company? And let me tell you this adaptation is incredible! Like, omg!!!!!! I’m a huge ballet fan and the choreography and music, as well as dancers, were amazing- not to mention the costumes and scenography.

Definitely another adaptation where I can say Dracula-done-right.

Although there is one thing at the end that slightly bugs me…

Alright, so, I don’t mind when there are some slight changes when adapting a story, especially depending what kind of format it is becoming adapted too (tv show, cinematic movie, cartoon, ballet, etc…), so cutting Jack from the Suitor-squad and making Van Helsing responsible for the Asylum is fine. This is a ballet so of course you’ll have to shorten or condense things, which is why having Dacula kidnap Mina after his assault on her isn’t the worst of changes if you want quick drama at the end. Ok, so far, so good. They all go to Transylvania, they fight the Count, Quinecey gives his life defeating him, Mina is free. Great.

But… why does the performance ask her to step aside from the group and place her fingers on the former mark on her neck? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe it’s not her dreamily missing the vampire curse and it’s more the melancholy joy of having defeated such an evil but through much suffering. Probably. But it would have suited far better to have her in Jonathan’s loving embrace (a husband who would have gone to Hell to save her soul), her friends around them (friends who she loved and asked for the ultimate support in her fate). Idk, the rest of the ballet was so true and faithful to the characters, so this sorta stood out a bit.

[yallemagne]

Oh my god. This is why I have no patience for complaints going waaaaah a couple of people on tunglr write fics where Renfield is too complex or Jonathan is too badass or whatever. Like spare me y'all, far worse shit butchering the characters and the themes is distributed to millions every year through musicals, movies and books

Even the worst fanfic writers... I dunno, some of them are very bad... no, no, jokes aside. Even the worst fanfic writers have nothing on fucking Frank Wildhorn and his crew. Dracula das Musical and Jekyll & Hyde the musical romanticize and fetishize rape, murder, and abuse so damn much and they make MONEY off of it. They do it with silly lil catchy songs that draw in audiences that are willing to overlook the bad because "haha this song is so romantic". It's a song about rape, but okay, hun.

You can depict awful things happening or being said without supporting those things. I'll give even the most self-indulgent fanfic writers a chance because that is what fanfic writing is supposed to be: self-indulgent. Even when it's obvious that a fic writer actually does romanticize bad things... it does overall less harm than actual big adaptations.

By rewriting Dracula into a romantic musical where Dracula is the romantic lead, the writers are posing Dracula as being in the right. There is no nuance. His evil actions are EVIL they cause SO MUCH PAIN, but they smush in a few more weepy ballads about being lonely and say "he's actually a good guy once you get over your girlfriend's untimely death and start huffing lead paint". This is unlike, you know, classical tragedies where the main character gets his comeuppance because of some fatal flaw. Dracula does not die at the end of the Dracula musical because of any of his actions or character flaws. He dies because the writers realized at the last second that Dracula getting the girl is a bad ending.

Now, part of this ask is evidently referring a bit to some... recent drama. I've ranted about it before, so I'll spare specifics. Now, Dracula from the Dracula musical is an awful person, but the narrative functionally treats him as the underdog hero of the story. Look at all these cuckolds trying to keep him down. All he's trying to do is harm women, is that so bad? So, when a story depicts a character doing something wrong, the people who adore that character will probably be fine with it so long as the story does not acknowledge those actions as wrong. Because... if your favourite character... did something bad... then, are you bad?

No. Your poor little meow meow is kind of an asshole, I thought you knew this. That's what made you like them, right? Renfield did bad things. It's only fair to acknowledge that. He attacked Seward-- and yes, I know a great deal of y'all were in support of murdering Seward, but he did it so Seward would be unavailable to watch Lucy. He's indirectly responsible for Lucy's death. He's directly responsible for Mina's assault (though he did try to stop it). He tries to atone and gets killed after going against Dracula, but it doesn't take away the damage his actions caused. There's not enough content surrounding Renfield, to be perfectly honest. Though, I dread the writing that will result from that godawful comp-het disaster of a movie coming out.

I've never seen any fics that make Jonathan "too badass", honestly. Most fanfics severely undercut his capabilities and agency because um *whispers* most fanfics are Dracula/Jonathan. For once I want a Dracula 2020 fic that gives Jonathan a gun and fr kills Dracula. But that aside, that aside, even the stories that do make Jonathan "badass"... they don't really. He's strong and sexy, obviously, but that's just canon. The fact they go more in-depth as to how and why he's strong and sexy doesn't make it unbelievable. And those fics don't strip him of his weaknesses, he retains his PTSD. No fanfic like... ever... has made Jonathan a macho man.

[sleepymarmot]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

[Rewatched on May 21st]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the films that I watched perhaps a bit too young, and my teenage self was quite impressed by it. The vague but fond memories lingered until last year, when I participated in Dracula Daily and realized what this adaptation had done to the characters and storylines from the book. At first I wanted to rewatch it, but I didn’t want to spoil the novel for myself with whatever this adaptation did get right; then, the deeper into summer and autumn, the more I was repulsed by what I remembered of its portrayals of Lucy and Mina. Now enough time has passed that the impressions of my first reading feel distant enough for me to stomach whatever crimes this adaptation has committed, and the new round of Dracula Daily has reminded me of my plans to rewatch this through a new lens.

[Warning: spoilers for the movie and the book]

Well… my impressions are about the same as I expected. The only thing that surprised me was that I underestimated the level of character assassination involved. Lucy and Mina got the worst of it, but pretty much everyone’s personality and motivations are sanded down to the most superficial characteristics and dragged through dirt. Jonathan and Mina(!) don’t have any personality left whatsoever. The less said of poor Lucy, the better. The way this 1992 film is by far more misogynistic than the 1897 novel is absolutely astonishing. The film’s internal system of values is completely incoherent (as opposed to the novel, where it was very clear even if obviously dated). The story keeps switching back and forth between “edgy smutfic that has little to no basis in the novel” and “abridged adaptation that proudly insists on bringing up minor characters and events for a minute or two” which leads to the extreme inconsistency of the narrative and especially Mina’s character. All of the tense and suspenseful parts of the novel are galloped through at a breakneck pace that drains them of all emotion.

I guess I did watch it at the right age after all; as a teenager randomly catching this on TV I was susceptible to all the dramatic romance and sucking blood from the chest and whatnot, but as an adult who has read the novel this is unwatchable. Even worse is seeing people call this a faithful adaptation. If you think the novel is too bland and want to do your own thing that’s fine, but why drag Bramothy’s name and characters into it then?! This could have been either a decent gothic romance or a passable Dracula adaptation, and by trying to do both (and also due to their staggering misogyny and love for victim-blaming) the director and the writer achieved neither.

An extremely frustrating thing is that “loving someone who became a vampire, and being willing to follow them into undeath” is compelling, and it didn’t come out of nowhere! Mina’s compassion for Dracula and identification with his plight, and Jonathan’s devotion to Mina even at the cost of their souls is a potent but underdeveloped part of the novel that I would love to see elaborated on in an adaptation! In the film Jonathan is even allowed to keep two whole lines that gesture at these conflicts! But instead of simply turning this aspect of the Mina/Jonathan relationship up to eleven, the screenwriter cuts and pastes it into the Mina/Dracula relationship without adjusting the rest of the story accordingly. There’s also something that is present in the novel and removed from the movie even though it would have helped make Mina/Dracula more believable. In the novel, vampiric transformation completely changes one’s personality. This serves as a major source of horror and raises questions like: can the vampire version of your loved one be considered the same person? would you kill their vampire self to release the real one? shouldn’t any vampire, no matter how vile, deserve compassion on behalf of their original self? Under this interpretation, it would have made sense for Dracula’s wife who only knew him pre-vampirism to continue loving him even as a vampire. But in the movie, vampirism only makes people more sexual and aggressive, and otherwise there is little change: Lucy is shallow and vulgar even before being turned; Mina loves Dracula and wants to be with him even before being turned; as for Dracula himself, the narration describes his atrocities but doesn’t specify whether he committed him as a human or a vampire. This is a huge disservice to all characters involved, and to the entire story.

Congratulations to the costume designer and the cinematographer for being the only people to do a decent job in this bloody circus. Gary Oldman and Keanu Reeves look nice but that doesn’t help much when the script messes up their characters so badly.

Current rating: 6/10 for the visuals and the parts of the story I actually like. Might lower it later.

---

Liveblog / notes about specific scenes

As much as I hate to see Dracula/“Mina”, good for him for turning against the church that declared his beloved damned. Giving him Jonathan’s traits right within the first five minutes, huh. The bleeding cross is pretty silly, though.

Hilarious to see the title “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” after this intro that completely goes against the letter and spirit of the book.

Huh, Renfield is serving him already?.. LMAO they merged Renfield with Jonathan’s employer! That explains it. A pretty fun choice, actually.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but I’ve always continued to picture Jonathan like Keanu Reeves in this movie, throughout the whole book. No good acting or chemistry found in the first scene with Jonathan and Mina, unfortunately.

The typewriter! She types so slowly though lmao.

Woow the carriage scene completely misses the point of the original. Why is the driver not trying to save Jonathan? What does “For the dead travel fast” even mean when you don’t have Dracula arriving earlier than the humans hoped?

Not a fan of Dracula brandishing a sword at Jonathan straight away.

Love the giant London map. And Dracula’s misplaced shadow, lol.

“They say you are a man of good… taste.”

Um, they pulled this diary entry about Jonathan not wanting Mina to be spoiled out of their asses, right??

Why does Mina have a random book with smutty images on her desk and also act scandalized about it aloud when she’s alone?

How old are Mina and Lucy supposed to be? They act like they’re fourteen or something… They’re of marriageable age, surely they know what it entails!

I didn’t know how good I had it during the Dracula-Jonathan section. It’s truly painful to watch the character assassination of everyone involved.

Wow, Lucy says her dumb innuendo (an invention of the script, obviously), then Quincey immediately calls her “little girl” (as in the novel) not even half a second later. That was certainly a choice.

Jack comically tripping and falling is the only good thing about this scene.

I’m sorry why does Renfield’s asylum look like THAT?!

“A foul bauble of man’s vanity!” He said the thing!

Just as I was about to type “Where’s the Lizard Fashion?”, here it was.

Is it supposed to look hilarious when one of the three weed smoking girlfriends rises from between Jonathan’s legs? Because it was hilarious.

Oh good point actually; did Jonathan in the novel leave the crucifix at his bed instead of wearing it?

The staging of the three vampires’ scene and a hard cut to Jonathan calling himself “faithful” in the letter… The film positively hates him.

On the other hand, the film not only adds sex to Dracula feeding on Lucy, but very pointedly specifies that it was not consensual. What was the intention here? “Punish” her for being “promiscuous” in the interactions with the three suitors?

What in the award season red carpet is this dress

Mina as a title-seeker who is jealous of Lucy and her fiancé and immediately becomes interested in Dracula when he says he’s a prince — pray tell, which part of the novel is this supposedly based on? That’s right, you pulled this disgusting slander right out of your ass.

Of course the suitors talk about Lucy in a rude way and dismiss her illness. And Arthur has a pervy smile on his face as he watches the sick Lucy. This film is determined on character assassination for absolutely everyone involved.

I admit, I still think “I have crossed oceans of time to find you” is a good line.

Cute fluffy doggy :3

Cute fluffy bat :3

Van Helsing saying “My god, she’s only a child” as the camera severely oversexualizes Lucy is also a choice, see above.

“Don’t worry about spoiled little Lucy” — this is the first in-character thing that Lucy has said. 1 hour 12 minutes into the movie.

“Perhaps, though I try to be good, I am bad.” Great dialogue writing here. /s

“A bitch of the devil, a whore of darkness” I hate this movie as much as this movie hates women.

“She is a willing recruit, a breathless follower, a wanton follower.” Wait, no, it would be impossible to match this script’s misogyny, actually.

Absolutely reprehensible how this movie has the female victim herself specify that what happened to her was against her will, then has a male character waltz in and state that she “asked for it” anyway, and the narrative seems to side with him. Rape culture on steroids.

They just completely skipped past the entire “Mina learns what happened to Jonathan and types up the first half of the novel”… Why did they even show the typewriter then?

Men will read a scene in which a woman is semi-metaphorically raped and think “yes I will turn this into a romantic scene in which the woman confesses her undying love and declares her intent to be together forever”

God, I remember how betrayed I felt last autumn when I reached October 3rd in the novel and realized that the scene I found romantic and sensual as a teenager was based on that… And on rewatch, even without taking the novel into consideration, the film’s version doesn’t make internal sense. When Mina started weakly punching Dracula it looked so unserious that at first I thought she was playfighting, not reacting to the revelation that her lover had raped and murdered her best friend and imprisoned her husband.

It’s also notable that the film adds several rape scenes that weren’t in the book, but throws out the rape scene that was in the book. I interpret this as the creators confessing that they don’t seriously care about turning the “vampirism = sexual violence” subtext into text, and everything the movie did to Lucy exists because they thought it was hot and wanted the viewers to find it hot too. Absolutely vile.

Why does Mina cry “Unclean! Unclean!” in this version if it was her idea… Or was that supposed to be mind control as well, even though Dracula was arguing with her?

(Unexpected addition to my yonic wound list though)

Spent all this time thinking that at least van Helsing remained in character (except for the misogyny), and now he’s making out with Mina.

The final scene in the chapel was surprisingly good, all things considered. “Mina” tenderly kissing the bloodied lips on Dracula’s monstrous face still works for me. And she looks her best with her hair down.

So what is supposed to happen after this? In this version, Jonathan is mediocre, and Mina doesn’t love him as much as she loved Dracula — does she just go back to him for a loveless marriage?

[serial-serializednovelreader]

LOL I’ve noticed that too! Not trying to call anyone out, but I saw a post where someone was calling out our first go-around for giving him the title of “oblivious protagonist” and I saw someone rb with “no it’s just the time loop making him smarter!” …….that’s…ok. I understand it was probably a joke, but still.

I fully acknowledge I saw Jonathan as a clueless protagonist the first time around when I read Dracula back in 2022. That was my bad, I started Dracula Daily late so I skimmed the first part of the book and didn’t really absorb him as a character with genre awareness. I look back at most of my first posts with shame because of that. Don’t get me wrong, I still saw him as a character with a ton of personality and smarts, I just couldn’t fathom *why he was there* (for his job, Nova) or why he didn’t read the warning signs (he says goodbye to Mina on day two, Nova!!!!!!!).

I’d like to consider myself someone with good reading comprehension skills, but to be fair to me and the rest of us, there is a lot to absorb in Dracula. It’s not exactly a “light read”, at least I don’t think so. It is a book that deserves several rereads. I’m glad we do something like Dracula Daily so we *can* go back and be like “hey so Jonathan actually does know what kind of book he’s in and we kind of mischaracterized him the first time we read Dracula Daily.”

I think we got so absorbed in “queer paprika dreams” and “lizard fashion” that we didn’t fullu appreciate Jonathan’s smarts and honestly, why would we? In 99.9% of horror movies/books, the main characters are, at best, suspicious there’s something wrong and, at worst, completely oblivious. Jonathan himself is portrayed as such in every Dracula adaptation ever, if they bother to give him enough of a personality. I know I projected that “horror protagonist is oblivious to what’s around him” onto him, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened. There’s also the mob mentality. If one person makes a funny meme…

And I’m not saying everyone read him this way. In fact, I’m sure there’s plenty of people who read him the way he is and either didn’t blog about it, or we didn’t listen because we got swept up in the funny memes about him being oblivious. So shoutout to anyone who did that, sorry you weren’t heard!

I think part of the reason why some want to blame it on the time loop is because you know who else misread Jonathan Harker? Movie producers who make Dracula adaptations. They too probably read the book once, didn’t get Jonathan’s character at all (read: less than us), and made him into what we have today. So I can understand wanting to distance myself from that.

In case it’s not coming across correctly, here’s what I’m not saying:

People who make time loop memes are bad (they are quite funny when done right, to me at least)

People who mischaracterized Jonathan are bad (I was literally one of them!!! And I still come across people who do so, usually first-time readers. Almost like there’s a pattern…….)

Movie producers are bad (they ruined my blorbos but I have hope)

Horror protagonists being oblivious to the horrors around them are bad (usually there’s a good reason for it).

Here’s what I am saying:

Have kindness for yourself and others

Rereads are good!

Spread awareness that Jonathan is Genre-AwareTM

Own up to not reading Jonathan right if you’d like. I don’t think anyone’s going to judge you for it. I won’t!

We may not have gotten everything right about him, but we did better most of the producers!!! We still understood his kind and honest nature. I’d say that’s far and away better than most adaptations can say.

Finally, it’s not fair to our good friend Jonathan Harker to just blame it on the time loop. By saying that, you’re kind of invalidating the way Stoker wrote him. Again, I get it’s a joke and this is a fictional character we’re talking about but…I really don’t know, it just feels important.

Seeing people trying to excuse their past shallow readings and mischaracterization for Dracula with “it’s actually because of the time loop changing things! I was right the first time too!!” as if the time loop posts couldn’t get any more obnoxious……

[thenightling]

Why Wednesday is NOT a Harry Potter rip-off

Most of the “Hot Takes” about the Netflix series Wednesday are that it’s a shameless rip-off of Harry Potter.  Why? Because there’s a boarding school and supernatural creatures?   

Wednesday features Wednesday Addams going to Nevermore Academy, a school for “Outcasts.”  In the context of the show Outcast means monsters or people with super powers.  The school residents include werewolves, vampires, gorgons, and sirens as the main species based cliques. And the Principal was a shapeshifter. Other supernatural creatures in attendance include a telekinetic, an artist who has psychic visions and can temporarily bring his art to life, and a boy who can control bees.  A ghost and a Hyde monster also makes an appearance. And Wednesday, herself, is a seer.

��As far back as the 1930s the Addams Family has had witches. Charles Addams, himself, said that Morticia was a witch and he was her creator.  In the 1960s Addams Family show the opening theme song has the line “So get a witch’s shawl on, a broomstick you can crawl on.  We’re gonna pay a call on... The Addams Family.”  Grandmama brewed potions in every incarnation of the family and cursed a man in the 90s Addams Family movies.  Morticia’s sister, Ophelia, had flowers growing out of her head in the 1960s show.  If you think there was nothing supernatural about The Addams Family, you clearly were not paying attention.       

Now, in the show Wednesday, anyone with powers or who is of another species other than human, are called Outcasts.  Everyone else is a Normie. No, this is not a rip-off of Harry Potter’s Muggles.  In role playing games I sometimes had ordinary human characters called Vanillas.  In The Dresden Files TV series they were called civilians. Fables called them Mundies, which was short for Mundanes.  In Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula books the humans are sometimes called Breathers or Mortals.  Breathers is also what the ghosts in a few young adult book series call humans.  That and “Fleshies” like in the Casper movie.  In Bewitched and Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, non-magical people were called mortals.  The vampires of Anne Rice’s novels the human characters are called mortal.

So between Civilians, Breathers, Fleshies, Mundies, Mortals, and Vanilla, the idea of the supernatural society having another name for the non-magical ordinary humans also was not invented by J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter. You would have to have had very limited experience with the horror and fantasy genres if you think Harry Potter was the first to come up with the concept of a school of the magically incline.  

The Worst Witch- about a little girl in Witch School, was first published in 1974 and the first movie version was in 1986 and then it had two TV show adaptations. 

Even Monster High- which I, myself, have compared the school in Wednesday to- was not the first of it’s kind.    

In 1988 there was an animated movie called Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School where Shaggy got a job as a Phys Ed Teacher in an “All Ghoul school” inhabited by the daughters of the classic movie monsters.  You had the daughter of Dracula, the daughter of The wolfman, the daughter of The mummy, and a daughter of a ghostly phantom.  Sound familiar?  It was Monster High before Monster High. 

And don't forget even the novel Dracula in 1897 mentioned Scholomance (School of Magick) a mystical school supposed to be hidden in Eastern Europe over a lake. Also unlike Harry Potter, in the world of Wednesday, much like True Blood, the general public do seem aware that werewolves, vampires, and the like exist.  

Does Wednesday borrow from other Gothic Horror and teen dramas or who-done-its?  Of course.  But it’s done in its own unique way.  And it’s a spin-off of a beloved property, The Addams Family.  So just sit back and relax and enjoy it for what it is.  This is not a rip-off of Harry Potter.  It’s a hodgepodge of Gothic fantasy and it’s the first time Tim Burton has felt like ...well, himself, in over fifteen years.  Stop looking for reasons to hate it and just have fun. With Gothic horror films like The Invitation also embracing old Gothic Horror tropes, and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman finally having its own TV show adaptation, I find it to be a breath of fresh air to see 2022 being the year that Gothic Horror has finally made a pop culture return without a cynical deconstruction by people who never appreciated the genre.  I had been hoping for this kind of entertainment for a long, long time.

[pencilxpaper]

Stoker's depiction of Romani is vile, but it's extra vile because the Romani have a STRONG ANTI VAMPIRE history and tradition, so framing them here as Dracula's helpers is just so very wrong.

All the vampire encyclopedias I have use the slur (fair warning, most do), so I won't quote any of them, but they are full of examples of many vampire hunting techniques and beliefs that are Romani in origin. In this book, they would more likely be his worst enemy and not his allies.

Actually, I'd love to see an adaptation where we have the Romani become the protagonists of the story, because they would by far have more experience and knowledge than any of the English or Dutch people involved. That would be amazing to see.

[fitzrove]

@mornyavie Ah yeah. Actually, we seem to be talking about completely different things :D

As a Finnish person with a choir background I am in fact rather familiar with Värttinä and Finnish folk music in general, and the influences are one reason I enjoy LOTR the musical :D But in this post, with my "Finnish plays with music" comment, I wasn't referring to the Finnish music tradition, which is indeed really cool and I'm glad to see it continuously influence such big general-audiences works. I was talking about an extremely frustrating contemporary theatremaking trend in my country where people will randomly stick a few songs in a spoken-word play and call it "music theatre". That's irrespective of the genre and more to do with the general state of the Finnish cultural industry, which sometimes struggles to see the potential of actual musicals (where all songs actually drive the plot forward and have character development or proper worldbuilding in them...). The worst offender in terms of the songs not making much sense that I've seen so far is a contemporary pop (??) Dracula adaptation where the director straight up considers musicals an inherently lesser form of theatre and hence adamantly didn't want to make his show one lmao.

The LotR Musical's biggest problem is that it's not, in fact, a musical. It's a stage show with music. However, it's closer to a musical than to any other type of stage show. Common types include:

play

musical

opera

operetta

concert

stand-up comedy

ballet

Obviously, the LotR Musical fits best into the 'musical' category, and when talking about it casually, referring to it as a musical is the safest and most accurate option. However, it's not called The Lord of the Rings: The Musical and has never been. It was The Lord of the Rings initially, and now it's The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale. Therefore, it should not be evaluated according to traditional criteria for musicals; by calling it a 'musical tale', the creators clearly mark it as a deviation from the norm.

Many critics and audience members who ended up disliking or even hating the show mention that it's simply not a good musical, that the songs didn't move the action forward, didn't express the characters' thoughts, and weren't catchy. What happened in these cases is that they saw either the 'musical' component in the title, or read a description that called it a 'musical', and went in expecting a stereotypical musical. Those expectations aren't met by the show (though I would argue that "The Cat and the Moon" is extremely catchy).

It's extremely sad that many do not possess enough media literacy to notice the unique tag 'a musical tale' and consequently open up to a different type of stage show that is nevertheless still in the frame of 'musical'. Especially in the context of Middle-earth, a continent in a world created through music and song, a slightly different approach to the concept of a 'musical' seems appropriate. Sometimes, characters enjoy a little sing-song with their friends while travelling, or call on the Powers for guidance; but maybe that's too much realism in a fantasy world.

[milfbro]

my favorite Dracula characters so far:

the man who gave johnathan's letter and coin back to dracula

the woman who came in the castle looking for her child knowing how fucking dangerous that was

the man who didn't speak english that Jonathan was mad at for not speaking english

mr swales

everyone who knew jonathan was in trouble but let him go to the castle anyway

dr 'owns his own insane asylum' seward

Mr Billington, solicitor, who sold Dracula the worst house ever

Captain of the Demeter, obviously

Jonathan's little kodak camera

Mina Murray is the most character ever and she only gets more so as the book goes on. She should be the protagonist of every adaptation.

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

Monster of the Week: A Writer’s Guide to Vampires!

The Basics: Vampires From Around the World 

Almost every culture has its vampires, and they go way beyond Dracula and Nosferatu. 

There are obviously too many to include in one post, so here are a few especially unique vamps to get you inspired and interested in learning more! 

The Penanggalan, Malaysia - Literally meaning ‘to detach,’ the Penanggalan is an exclusively (apparently) female creature. 

By day, she masquerades as a normal woman (and let’s be real, don’t we all.)  But by night, her head detaches from her body and floats around, entrails hanging like tentacles -- which they nightmarishly use to entangle their victims -- and preys on pregnant woman and babies.  Lovely. 

Creepily, the Penanggalan gravitates towards day jobs such as midwifery, so she can get closer to her prospective prey. 

The Manananggal, Philippines - Much like the Penanggalan, the Manananggal has an unfortunate habit of detaching parts of her body to fly around.  Described as an “ugly, hideous woman” (mood), the Manananggal can detatch her whole-ass torso to fly around like a bat. 

Like the Penanggalan, she preys on pregnant woman and unborn babies, with, creepily, her incredibly long tongue.  Some, however, prefer to seduce and prey on men -- preferable, to be honest -- in which case they appear young and beautiful.

The Upir, Eastern Europe - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, Romanian, and Czech cultures all have mythos around this abnormally bloodthirsty vampire.  Not only do upirs drink the blood of their victims, but they bath and sleep in it.  They eat the flesh of their victims as well, and are especially partial to the heart.  In a uniquely sadistic detail, the Upir is thought to consume the children of a family and then the parents. 

The Alukah, Judaism - Literally meaning “horse-leach,” the Alukah is one of the earliest vampires, originating in the Bible.  

A fixture of Jewish folklore, and sometimes described as a demon or witch, the Alukah is unique in the fact that she is not undead but a living, shapeshifting being (according to the description in Sefer Hasidim.)

She can fly by unfurling her long hair.

The Brahmaparusha, India - This nightmarishly extra vampire will drink the drained blood of its victims from a skull (which it carries around at all times), before noshing on their brains and wearing their intestines as necklaces and crowns.  Worst of all, this vampire has an unusually ravenous appetite, and consumes several victims per night.  

The Callicantzaros, Greece - In Greece, children born between Christmas and Twelfth Night were thought to be bad luck (?) and susceptible to vampirism.  The Callicantzaros was considered to be egregiously unpleasant, equipped with devilish talons with which to tear victims to shreds.  Their first victims, post-transformation, were supposed to be their own siblings.

Unfortunately, this led to a degree of mistreatment and hostility towards children born during this period, as parents watched for signs of their progeny’s prospective vampirism.  In order to ensure that they didn’t become Callicantzaros, the children’s feet were dangled above a fire, like a reverse Achilles.

Vampire weaknesses: 

Garlic - This one’s not just particular to Western mythos.  Southeast and far Eastern vamps like the Manananggal are also vulnerable to garlic. 

Salt - The Manananggal is vulnerable to salt, as are vampires from most cultures in which salt is considered holy or purifying. 

Silver - A holy metal.  The origin of the “vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors” myth is because it used to be a component in mirror-making. 

Vinegar - Again with the Manananggal. 

Daggers/stakes/sharp objects - Especially through the vampire’s heart.  In many cultures, burning the heart is also advisable.  Be careful, though: sometimes, staking an upir will only bring them back to life stronger. 

Dismemberment and fire - Most vamps are susceptible to this, including the Penanggalan.  The only sure way to kill an upir is to decapitate them and burn the remains. 

Counting - Much like the Count of Sesame Street, vamps can’t resist counting things.  If you scatter some small, countable objects on the ground, the vampire will have to stop and count each one. 

The tails of stingrays - in the case of the Manananggal. 

Sunlight - Obviously.  Though not universal, this pops up in vampire mythology around the world, including the Manananggal. 

Detachment - when the Penanggalan and Manananggal detach their heads and torsos, their discarded torsos and lower bodies are vulnerable.  In the case of the Manananggal, sprinkling the discarded legs with garlic and salt.  The Mananggal will not be able to return to its lower body, and will perish with the rising sun. 

Starvation - The Alukah can be starved if she’s prevented from eating for long enough. 

Stupidity - In the case of the Penanggalan.  If you turn the Penanggalan’s body upside down, she’ll re-attach backwards.  I’m not sure what the purpose of this is, except the exhilaration of punking a vampire and making them walk around on their hands all day like a jackass.

Protection: 

Thorns around windows - Thorns will keep the Penanggalan from harassing you or your unborn children. 

Strings of garlic - Just make sure SOME IDIOT doesn’t take them down (RIP Lucy from Dracula.)

Pots of uncooked rice, ash, or salt - Repellent to the Manananggal.

Running away and hiding - Basically the only method of recourse against the Brahmaparasha.

Eating bread infused with an upir’s blood - Sounds kinky, to be honest. 

Stay on sacred ground - I.e. graveyards and churches.  Just be sure you’re not trying to avoid the kind of vampire that dwells in graveyards if you go for the latter.

Holy water, crucifixes, silver, et cetera - Anything sacred or holy.  Varies based on culture.

Imbibing the ash of a supposed vampire’s burnt heart - I’m not even going to joke about this one, since people actually did this during the vampire scare of New England (my homeland.)  I learned about it from a book about local vampire encounters at the Newport Public Library at age twelve, and it scarred me.

Dangle your baby above a fire - Actually, no, PLEASE don’t do that.  But that’s what seventeenth century Greeks did to prevent their kids from turning into Callicantzaros. 

Age of consent laws - Specifically for Edward from Twilight.

Don’t get a welcoming mat - Counts as inviting them in.  Duh.

Ways to Become A Vampire:*

*Ask your doctor if becoming a vampire is right for you.

Biting - Obviously.  Though if you read Dracula and early accounts of vampirism, it was more of a slowly progressing illness than a sudden transformation.

Reject Christianity - In the case of upirs.  More specifically, the church buried non-believers outside of graveyards, leading them to rise as servants of the Devil.  Honestly, I feel like the church kind of brought that on themselves. 

Be born between Christmas and Twelfth Night - At least if you’re in seventeenth century Greece.  

Be influenced by the Devil while dying - Another version of the Upir origin.

Be a demon possessing a corpse - One prospective explanation for the Brahmaparusha.

Making a pact to obtain eternal youth and beauty that involves not eating meat for 40 days and then breaking it like some kind of an IDIOT - One version of the Penanggalan origin myth.  I shouldn’t judge, my self-control isn’t great either.

Get startled by a man while meditating in a bath and jerk your head so hard that it flies off and at the interloper in fury - Another prospective version of the Pennangalan origin. Relatable, honestly. 

Be so bitter and jealous of couples that you go on an insane killing spree of pregnant woman and get publicly executed by being ripped in two - The Pennangalan, again.  She makes the Kardashians look tame. 

Chanting an incantation, anointing yourself with oil, and purchasing a black chick - In the case of the Manananggal.  The black chick reportedly lives inside the Manananggal, eating its innards while also acting as its life source.  Honestly, after all the drama of the Penanggalan’s origins, this seems reasonable.

Other Sources

Video Essays: 

The Power of the Vampire Myth - A superb sociological dive into the cultural significance of vampires. From the post WWI antisemitism of Nosferatu to their ability to subvert the Hays Code, vampires tend to reflect the shadows of every society. 

Dracula: A Brief History of Eternity 

CREEPIEST Vampire Legends from Around the World 

Vampires: Folklore, Fantasy, and Fact

How did Dracula become the world’s most famous vampire?

Vlad the Impaler: The Real Life Dracula

Influential Vampire Fiction:*

*That I’ve read/seen so far.

Dracula - Duh.  The greatest adaptation of which is, obviously, Dracula: Dead and Loving it.  

Nosferatu - It’s good to be aware of its antisemetic overtones, but it’s still revolutionary at evoking dread.

Varney the Vampire - A penny dreadful series that helped popularize vampires in Victorian England.  It gets bonus points for sounding like a children’s show. 

Camilla - The ORIGINAL lesbian vampire, predating Dracula by decades.  Became an adorable webseries and movie, which I recommend even more than the original novel.

‘Salem’s Lot - Serves as a study of what makes vampires scary in the modern era.   

Underworld - Aside from serving as a badass alternative in the Twilight era, it merits inclusion exclusively for causing my Sapphic awakening at age twelve.

What We Do In the Shadows - Has a unique understanding of the cultural significance of vampires, and why they appeal to societal misfits.  Also has vampire “children” who eat p*dophiles. 

Vampires in the Lemon Grove - The titular story is one of the most unique interpretations of vampires that I’ve seen in the modern era.  Beautiful language that evokes a powerful emotional response.

Twilight - Exclusively because it gave us Rosemary clocking shop in a wedding gown.  And the baseball scene.

Nonfiction:

The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters

From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth

Vampires and Vampirism: Legends from Around the World

New Orleans Vampires: History and Legend

Mummies, Cannibals, and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine

A History of Vampires in New England 

Happy Halloween, and happy writing, everybody!