#mr. swales
Conversation
Mina: Oh, hello Mr. Swales.
Old Man: Listen, Mina, I'm sorry I upset you by talking about death before. It's just that death comes for us all, we can't escape it, we are all doomed forever, and I'm probably going to die right in front of you right now
Mina: -now openly weeping-
Old Man: no no no listen see it's fine, because everyone on earth could die at any second, really, even young lawyers who have fiancees waiting at home who really love them, so don't be upset
Old Man: because Death is always coming towards us on the horizon, like that ship over there in the storm
Dracula, presumably steering the Demeter: I DON'T KNOW HOW BOATS WORK
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Goodbye, Mr. Swales. I'm sorry for how you ended. After all your talk of disbelief, of folktales and histories made of lies, of your long life spent in a world that no longer fears the wild dark and the monsters sensible people no longer see in it, you had yourself proven so terribly wrong at the end. The fool-talk was true for you as it skulked up the hill.
Though he was no barghest, the black dog that came to meet you was no sane animal known to God. Not on four legs. Not when he rose up on two. Did you startle back and snap yourself to death to seek mercy out of his reach? Or did you have his help to remove you, an impatient paw or hand put cold and tight on a brittle throat to be rid of a witness? You can never tell us now.
I wish you'd haunt a while, though you have no faith in ghosts.
Your young mourners could have used the warning.
#feeling a Way about this old man and what's coming next#mr. swales#dracula#re: dracula#dracula daily
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Mina to Lucy, as soon as Mr. Swales walks away
#mr. swales sure is a character alright#mr. swales#mina murray#lucy westenra#mina murray harker#mina harker#mr swales#swales#dracula daily#re: dracula#dracula#dd august 1#august 1#dracula august 1#dracula memes#dracula spoilers
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Mr. Swales apologizing to Mina about his insensitive talk of death is just so lovely.
It shows that he really does care about her.
She’s spent a lot of time getting to know him over the past few weeks. Mina having someone to talk to really helps get her mind off of Jonathan.
Even though Lucy considers what Mr. Swales has been talking about to be wicked, Mina is truly invested in what he has to say. She understands that he has enjoyed talking to her as much as she’s enjoyed talking to him.
Mina is more upset with reminder that her new friend is going to die soon and that unfortunately turns her mind to being worried about Jonathan.
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The first part of Mina's entry starts out really funny. Mr. Swales has given off a "sweet old incomprehensible grandpa" vibe, but today I noticed some other stuff going on that's quite funny, even if in another situation it might be a little annoying. He's very much the 'main character' of his friends (Mina doesn't even bother to take down their names), and will cling to that role very tightly. Has to be the center of attention, everyone has to agree with him, very stubborn and will bully until he gets his way, he'll perform to the crowd and make sure his boys are laughing at his jokes. He's actually quite cynical, though it's possible some of that is also performative here. He's also super fixated on that idea of the souls carrying their gravestones on their backs on the Day of Judgement, he circled back to that one like four separate times.
I also love this bit:
"Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirk-garth." I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an' snog?" I assented again.
Mina internally: just smile and nod.
But on a more serious note... in all of this, there's something kind of interesting going on. The fact that he's talking so much about lies alongside empty graves/coffins. I'm not totally sure of where I want to go with it exactly, but it reminds me of Dracula's boxes. Though those are full of dirt, but still. They're like empty coffins in a way, and the entire use of the headstones to cover up the darker truth with a polite/pretty lie sure does remind of the Count. I'm sure this talk of empty suicide grave and such won't be relevant at all...
#dracula daily#mr. swales#also as always the audio is great for understanding him more easily than the written dialect
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Loving how the Dracula Daily ordering lets us juxtapose The Demeter's sense of impending doom with Mr. Swales' speech on sailors lost at sea whose bodies are never recovered.
It's also an absolutely beautiful moment to get Mina's commentary on her ability to simultaneously see two separate groups unable to see one another (the two bands).
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okay so was anyone gonna tell me that the old man with an incomprehensible accent that we all treated as a walking meme would actually end up giving an incredible and haunting speech about life and death or was I just supposed to expect that
#my absolute favorite entry so far#the demeter appearing right at the end after the last entry being from it's captain is just. wow.#the fact that we already know it's the demeter because of the e-mail format just makes it hit infinitely harder#like oh. this is over. that part of the story is done.#dracula#dracula daily#mr. swales
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August 6: I don’t know if talking about your imminent demise is a good apology for freaking someone out, idk.
August 4 August 8
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Mr. Swales: *speaks*
Me: "I love him..."
Me: "WHY am I crying. Bitch."
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R.I.P. to the Best Character in Dracula
~Mr. Swales~
Aug. 1st 2022 - Aug. 10th 2022
may his tombstone ever tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth
#dracula daily#mr. swales#Godspeed you perfect man#drag that tombstone up to the gates of Heaven and chuck it right into St. Peter’s stupid face if he gives you any guff
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(Catching up on Dracula Daily, because I’m bad with due dates. It will happen again.)
August 1
Mina’s got one hell of an amazing memory, recalling everything that Mr. Swales said. I know it’s late, but I’d love to see fanart of this scene, Swales going on and on; Mina smiling, amused and interested; and Lucy like, “Umm … not really a fan.” Poor Lucy. She just wants to hang out with her friend and enjoy the view…. And then there are these guys.
In Re: Dracula, I LOVE Lucy’s disapproving tone to Swales. I can envision her expression perfectly, like she disapproves of the immaturity and thoughtlessness. And speaking of Mr. Swales, Graham Rowat’s accent and delivery is perfect.
Also, I ADORE the musical transition from the end of Mina’s entry about Mr. Swales to the beginning of her later entry, as her thoughts turn to grief and anxiety and uncertainty. She ends her first entry almost matter-of-factly, stating how the situation with Jonathan upsets her a little. But then, in the next entry…. I love how her voice slowly drops its “I’m getting by” front as she speaks, until she’s on the verge of tears by the end. She’s not fine. She’s not just getting by. She’s enjoying hanging out with Lucy and listening to these old codgers chat … but distractions are temporary; they aren’t a solution. It’s a situation she can do nothing about besides endure. She has nothing to go on, so she can’t find out anything for herself. And it hurts. It really hurts.
Many, many kudos to Isabel Adomakoh Young for getting ALL of that across.
Another thing I really enjoy in listening to Re:Dracula is the monologues. Many classical books—Dracula included—include very long, no-breaks-no-pauses monologues. When reading with my eyes, I take most of it in at the same speed, and that makes it hard for me to translate how they would sound if spoken aloud. I appreciate how the actors in Re:Dracula take their time with them, give thoughtful pauses and tone changes, which break up the pace and lends more feeling to the words than I can get from reading it myself. It’s a beautiful translation from the page to the voiced.
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Mina, stranglehold on her composure, about to snap her pen in half: Okay! Okay. So, we got a portentous omen of death in the ghost ship with the ghastly sea captain corpse tied to his ship with a bottled account of an inhuman murderer arriving with a hellish storm. Followed by the unceremonious Terror Death of my newest old man friend right in the place where Lucy and I sit. Followed by a man kicking his dog in front of us and sending some kind of empathic horror-signal to Lucy. Followed by my daily and increasingly intense bout of Worry for Jonathan who continues to be missing in another country. Which country? I don't know! Still! Sure hope he's not part of the Hot Slaughter Summer queue, ha ha! At least Lucy is doing better with the health and the sleepwalking and whatnot! :) Let's hold onto that one single mote of good news! :)) Surely we can wring a microdrop of positivity out of that! :)))
Dracula, in his beachside rental suicide grave: :3c
#in which Miss Mina Murray is having some kind of time#and Dracula continues to be a big undead bastard of a downer wherever he goes#mina murray#lucy westenra#mr. swales#(RIP sir)#dracula#re: dracula#dracula daily
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me, cheering up a crying person: there, there... don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary
#i'll never get over mr. swales phoneticized accent! never!#dracula daily#dracula#re: dracula#august 6#dd august 6#dracula august 6#dracula spoilers#dracula memes#mr. swales#swales#mr swales
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No one disagrees with this old man because they're still trying to figure out what he said.
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Now that Dracula Daily is over, I decided to go through my copy of the novel (Norton critical edition) to look for interesting footnotes and read the various essays/etc. at the back.
Here's some of my favorite footnotes:
An enlarged thyroid gland resulting in a swollen neck; one symptom of iodine deficiency; particularly common in some mountainous regions; may cause brain damage.
—Page 15/May 5, after Jonathan mentions seeing a lot of people with 'goitre' as he is driven out of town and up towards Castle Dracula. Didn't notice this detail at all, but it plays around with possible signs of being fed upon, mundane medical causes, and also maybe an association with madness and superstition. A neat touch.
The word strange in late Victorian England was often suffused with homoerotic undercurrents.
—Page 30/May 7, after Jonathan says "It may be that this strange night-existance is telling on me". Did not know that 'strange' was apparently a gay word in a way 'queer' (or even 'gay') was not at the time. Gives that line a kind of different possible reading... and now I kind of want to search up where else in the text that word is used.
A port city in Yorkshire, on the North Sea coast of England; in the 1890s, a vacation resort where Bram Stoker spent many summers. Whitby's eerie charm is a good setting for the ensuing action. It shares the harsh beauty of nearby Bronte country; moreover, in Victorian England its best-known product was the black stone worn as part of the mourning costume - mourning stone, or jet - a local industry now displaced by Dracula tours.
—Page 63/July 24, after the location is mentioned. Love the detail about the mourning stones.
"Not only Mr. Swales' preoccupations, but even his name, associate him with living death. The English Dialect Dictionary (1898) provides a revealing North Yorkshire definition of the verb "swale": "to consume or waste away; to melt or gutter as a candle in a draught."
—Page 66/July 24, after Mr. Swales' big speech on death. I can't believe he was actually named "Mr. Is-Dying".
Seward distributes his medical reports profigately.
—Page 105/September 2, in response to the line: "I reminded her that a doctor's confidence was sacred;" - I'm just laughing at the snarky footnote here.
This is the first and last we hear of Van Helsing's third career (he is also a physician and a professor). Characteristically, he uses his legal expertise to circumvent the law.
—Page 148/September 20, after VH says he is a lawyer. Characteristically indeed, ahaha.
Various late Victorian tonics used the advertising slogan "The Blood is the Life." Renfield might be referring to Hughe's Blood Pills or Clarke's World-Famed Blood Mixture. Both claimed to vitalize the body by purifying the blood.
—Page 207/September 30, after Renfield tells Mina that he tried to kill Seward while inspired by the Biblical phrase 'the blood is the life': "'Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very point of contempt.'" I just never really put together that this quote had been used as an advertising slogan and it's making me crack up. Imagine your mental patient attacking you and slurping your blood off the floor, then shouting "Ba-da-da-da, I'm loving it!" while being dragged away. (I know that's not the most direct comparison but it's the one that popped into my head and it's very funny.)
Again, the British characters have more difficulty communicating with each other than with the Romanian vampire.
—Page 231/October 1, after Jonathan is misled by phonetic/dialectic spelling. Even the footnotes are getting fed up with this dialect nonsense, Bram.
#dracula daily#jonathan harker#mr. swales#renfield#jack seward#van helsing#norton notes#i'm gonna add any interesting bits from the other sections as well if i find them. so this'll be the tage used for that
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For those who need some help with Mr. Swales today:
Fash: To tease or importune
Comers and Trippers: Visitors
Feet-Folks: Foot Passengers
Fool Talk: Nonsense
Gang: To go; walk
Ageeanwards: Towards
Crammle: To hobble; to walk ill as if with corns on one's feet
Aboon: Above... although Swales seems to use this to mean "up" or "about"
Grees: Stairs
Belly Timber: Food
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