hey bestie, I just met a hot guy who runs a lunatic asylum who would be great for you if you weren’t married to Jonathan I Will Endure A Castle Of Darkest Hell For Real Estate Harker. anyways the lunatic asylum guy tried to psychoanalyse me and I’m in love with him hey remember when we used to undress and sleep together? good times
There is Dracula on my dash and I’ve just read a post about how women do “trashy fanfiction” and men do “transgressive transformative art” (great post by the way) and it’s the occasion to take something off my chest that had been there for eons.
Coppola’s Dracula (”Bram Stoker’s” my ass) is exactly a fanfiction (and not such a good one). The movie’s good, Coppola is talented and I’m all for monsterfucking, that’s not the point. But it’s like Coppola read the book and though, “hum, ok, now, How can i re-write that to make the bad, narcissist, toxic, abusive character get the girl at the end”.
The book is all about non-toxic, sincere and respectful love. Mina and Johnathan love each other dearly and respectfully. (for me, they are couple goal). Lucy has three suitors, she chooses one, the other says “ok, fair enough”. They don’t fight each other, they fight in her name. I love Dracula (and I love the vampire figure in general) but he is f** not boyfriend material. The movie love story is just the director wanting his fav to be the main.
The only monsterfucker in this story is Jonathan.
When I think about the romance in Coppola’s Dracula I can’t help it, this scene from “Dracula: Dead and loving it” always plays in my mind:
Mina:Vlad, I’m engaged to Jonathan now. And besides, you’re dead!
Mina’s competence is so so sexy. within a few lines she establishes herself as a teacher, a self-taught stenographer and typist, and she’s planning to build her skills in journalism. Jonathan and Mina are a power couple with a relationship built on mutual respect and admiration for each other’s administrative qualifications
Jonathan Harker: This is my fiancée Mina, and Minas girlfriend Lucy, and Lucy’s Fiancé Arthur, and Arthur’s Boyfriend John Seward, and Seward’s boyfriend Quincey, and
Jonathan: Mina is gay but she’s straight for me and she’s gay for Lucy and Lucy’s really gay for Mina. And I hate Lucy.
mina: i’m glad jonathan’s well! i’m longing to hear all his news! it must be so nice to travel :)
jonathan, 24 hours previous (unable to shave, sleep schedule in tatters, politely listening to a talk on transylvanian history from a guy who lunged at his throat earlier): i feel like a rat
what if i wrote you a letter that said “I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air” and we were both girls
around the time in which dracula was written, the concept of women and womanhood was being redefined and revolutionized - so much so that there was even a name for this phenomenon of female power: the new woman.
the new woman was a feminist archetype used to describe independent women who were feminists, educated, career-driven, and sought to make a space for themselves outside of the home sphere. mina is introduced in dracula by talking of her career as a school mistress’s assistant, her hopes at getting better at stenography and typewriting, and equating herself to a journalist; mina is basically The New Woman archetype personified. yes, she still cares for and loves her fiancé, but it’s obvious that she has her own drives and goals, and that she is educated and independent.
as the book continues (and if you’d like to think about these things as you read), i think it would be beneficial to pay attention to how mina is treated by the narrative and other characters. because she is the archetype of the developing modern, independent woman, her place in the story matters a whole lot, and keeping an eye on how her power (or lack thereof) impact the narrative may just mean keeping an eye on how women were dealt with and thought of at the time
Since Dracula is the hot thing right now i figured i might as well deviate from my usual comic posting and post a thread of tweets i did a couple months back
Jonathan Harker: This is my fiancée Mina, and Minas girlfriend Lucy, and Lucy’s Fiancé Arthur, and Arthur’s Boyfriend John Seward, and Seward’s boyfriend Quincey, and
Jonathan Harker: This is my fiancée Mina, and Minas girlfriend Lucy, and Lucy’s Fiancé Arthur, and Arthur’s Boyfriend John Seward, and Seward’s boyfriend Quincey, and
I think the main reason I dislike Dracula/Mina being the accepted romance in many Dracula and just plain vampire media is because there’s just no backup for it. Like it’s so forced. You’re telling me that you read Dracula right? And the possible pairing you got out of it was Dracula/Mina??? I mostly blame a century’s worth of film adaptations for this.
You can get some mileage out of Dracula/Lucy at least, I think there’s a lot of unsaid potential in how Lucy possibly felt; given that I believe she’s the perfect parallel to Dracula, and what does it mean that he’s turned the good version of himself into a monster? Hatred for the innocent person he never was? Or resentment for what he could’ve been? This is mostly speculation since the og text doesn’t go into that kind of direction, but look at what I got just at the idea of them. Dracula/Mina have no depth, no layers and no hints at what they could be going forward had they actually gotten together.
And don’t get me started on how much more Dracula/Jonathan have. The beginning of Dracula, with Jonathan’s pov trapped the Count’s castle, is the best part of the book in my opinion. It’s the scariest and most tense section, and is where the queer subtext is at its most hefty. While I won’t outwardly state Bram Stoker’s sexuality, since there’s really no way to know for certainty where his arrow pointed, there’s good evidence that he wasn’t straight, and was in great agony about that. I think his internalized homophobia is what gave us that first part of Dracula. And I truly think that Dracula/Jonathan’s relationship is both psychosexual and heartbreaking. There’s just soo much you can do with the text given. Unlike Dracula/Mina, there’s a story here. The struggles that Jonathan went through during his stay were so raw and emotional, him wrestling with both fearing and lusting for Dracula. Jonathan developed a friendship with Dracula on top of that, a friendship that was ultimately betrayed by the monster he was simultaneously repulsed and drawn to. This all culminates in my favorite line in the book (and maybe ever?): “I doubt; I fear; I think strange things which I dare not confess to my own soul.”
I mean that line is just so real??? So obvious but so layered?? I’m surprised the British censors didn’t burst in nightsticks a-blazin ala Picture of Dorian Gray style.
Jonathan could never understand his feelings around Dracula, he could only cry out against the allure that should be tucked away and hidden if it continues to dare to exist. Jonathan’s stay in Count Dracula’s castle is the rawest expression of doubt and horror at something society has told him is just as disturbing as a bloodsucking monster. Bram Stoker really showed his hand there. Jonathan discovered something about himself that he didn’t understand, and lost a friend in the process. I truly think Dracula/Jonathan should be more recognized because all the pieces are there. But much like Bram Stoker’s own take on queerness, movies and adaptations could never show a queer relationship to the people, that would be too much for a vampire film. So instead a constant stream of Dracula adaptations push a romance with the next best option, the man’s wife. Despite the fact that there were no interesting ideas or consequences, like Dracula/Lucy, nor any of the sexual or even romantic tension, like Dracula/Jonathan.
Not to mention that Dracula doesn’t really have a romance with anyone in the og book, but I get it, romance brings in the people. It’s just really annoying that Mina has to be forced into something that just doesn’t fit her at all. The fact that it’s just widley accepted that the great vampiric romance is Dracula/Mina. Vampires have always been wrapped up in grey morality, queerness, and sex; human monsters. Their appeal is the release of society’s barriers, to truly become the monster that everyone said we already were. Dracula/Mina have none of that.
I mean it’s actually understandable why many adaptations/media add mainly Dracula/Mina romance in them. From a practical point of view. But also from many bits from the novel itself which can be easily used for building such romantic angle.
Mina is the main female character of the novel, who stays till the end of the novel. It gives ample opportunity for writers/filmmakers/etc. to create a rich variety of content for this type of romance - not only within timeline of the novel itself, but also outside of it like sequels, where Mina for example could have dhampir offsprings or retain vampire abilities or use her experience with Dracula to lead group of fictional characters from other famous fiction works, or whatnot, etc. These things are simply impossible with Lucy, who dies in the middle of the novel and is out of the narrative for the rest of it as participant. Thus Lucy as a character for potential romance with Dracula provides very limited and short lived opportunities of story telling. Unless you go into complete AU territory where Lucy is not destroyed as vampire in the middle of the story, etc. If you indeed want to rely on the novel itself, then Lucy for example doesn’t have any dialogues with Dracula while Mina actually sort of has. The whole “blood of my blood” part he says to her and exchange of blood scene, which gives a lot of fuel and ground for potential exploration including the romantic one. In fact a lot of early adapters of the novel jumped on it at once, including early play adaptations such as famous Deane-Balderston play or that one play commissioned by Florence Stoker herself. Many actors who played Dracula on screen also saw this blood exchange scene with Mina as both sexual and romantic, long before Coppola came into picture - even in adaptations which were not supposed to be actually romantic themselves like in BBC 1977 adaptation which is considered to be the most faithful adaptation of the novel. Then we have the whole mental connection between Mina and Dracula in the novel, where they can read each other thoughts, which again provides plenty of narrative to explore it with romantic undertones (as twisted as they may be) if one wants to. There are also other details in the novel which can easily give way to parallels between them as characters. Mina is a self-proclaimed train fiend, while Dracula likes to study train time tables as well. Dracula is a pretty intellectual being, but so is Mina who is arguably the most intellectual and smart character in the novel on par with Van Helsing. If anything Dracula and Mina are intellectual equals with strong wills. Then there is such detail as mark on Dracula’s forehead due to shovel kick in the face-which easily parallels with mark on Mina’s forehead due to the holy burn of wafer. Then Dracula and Mina are also foils to each other - Dracula is an ancient creature, part of the old world, connected with mystical and supernational elements (in the novel it’s mentioned he basically studied dark arts). While Mina is a modern woman, woman of upcoming new world, world of science and new technology.
So saying that potential Dracula/Mina added romance has no depth or layers per the stuff we could find in the novel alone is simply not true cause per the novel they as characters have many interesting parallels and Mina is the only character in the novel, with whom Dracula not simply talks to or drains off blood but also gives his blood to. He only drinks Lucy’s blood but doesn’t give her his blood and doesn’t talk to her, and while he has some pretty cool conversations with Jonathan he actually doesn’t bite Jonathan at all in the novel, but instead leaves him as a meal for his vampire brides when he departs for England. Mina on the other hand is able to comunicate with Dracula both verbally and non-verbally (via mental link), and drinks his blood, while he drinks her blood.
Speaking of Jonathan. Of course you could say that the fact Jonathan/Dracula is not that big a part of mainsteam media/culture/adaptations is due to compulsory heterosexuality and it’s most likely true. However, it’s also due to the fact that in the novel (within the plot of the novel itself) Dracula simply abandons Jonathan in Transylvania, and goes to London, without ever trying to drink from him or transform him into vampire. Then, by the end of the novel, when there’s another opportunity for Dracula, who is invited by Renfield into asylum, to pray either on Jonathan or Mina or even Seward, Dracula again completely ignores Jonathan and goes after Mina out of all choices. So basically, Dracula had two big real opportunities in the novel to go after Jonathan and make him vampire and he simply didn’t give a damn about it. With Lucy Dracula steadily drinks her blood and transforms her into vampire, with determination, however once Lucy becomes vampire she is hunting alone and not with Dracula and goes after little children, and when she is destroyed as vampire, there is no Dracula reaction to it. With Mina on the other hand readers see that Dracula makes sure, that she would be transformed into vampire and would come to him across land and sea, because he already made plans to run away from England due to vampire hunters being after him and destroying his resting places. Yes, Stoker wrote attack on Mina for plot device - he needed means for characters to be able to find Dracula after he escaped to Transylvania and raise the stakes for the characters since now they needed to save Mina. But, from the narrative point of view/logic within the plot (in-universe) he could have just ran away from England back to his homeland, without ever attacking Mina. Or he simply could have killed Mina (and Jonathan and Seward, btw) in asylum without much fuss - as a revenge against the hunters. Instead he came after Mina, which actually resulted in his downfall - cause by giving Mina his blood he created mental connection with her and that’s how the hunters were able to track him in the end. So him trying to transform her into vampire, no matter what, and then bring her to him, in this case sort of sets Mina apart from other characters in the novel, namely Jonathan (where Dracula repeatedly didn’t bother to drink from him/transform him) or Lucy (where she was easily abandoned after her transformation into vampire). I’m pretty sure a lot of people picked on this while reading the novel and ran with this.
You say that “vampires have always been wrapped up in grey morality, queerness, and sex; human monsters. Their appeal is the release of society’s barriers, to truly become the monster that everyone said we already were.” That’s true but then you say, Dracula/Mina doesn’t have any of it. In the novel Mina is noble, honest Christian Victorian woman, who will lose her immortal soul, morality and transform into seductive demon-creature who feasts on blood of others. I mean that’s clearly release of society’s barriers for Mina, cause she would truly become the monster.
So I don’t think it’s merely by accident that Dracula/Mina romance has been so prominent in media and adaptations.
Mina and Lucy gossiping while Jonathan has the worst time of this life lol
[Image description: a black and white drawing of Mina Harker and Lucy Westerna from Dracula. They are seated on a bench facing each other. Mina is saying something and is showing Lucy some letters. Lucy is reaching out for the papers while smiling back at Mina. End image description].
