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chiiquititamoved · 4 years

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ep 1 of bbc dracula - observations

beginning looks very creepy. am i down? not sure.

there’s a cool nun! i’m getting some very good badass vibes

wHEw, okay, i was expecting some queerbait-y type stuff from this show but literally before even the intro, this (AMAZING) nun just goes “mr harker. have you had sexual intercourse with dracula?”

just. right out of the gate

we’ve established that this nun doesn’t have any faith in god

okay now we’re getting into the castle stuff. (this is right after the intro)

aw mina (from her letter) seems like a sweetheart so far

this is very beauty and the beast so far. like when belle’s dad goes into the castle and there’s no one there

oooh we just met dracula. he’s very wrinkly and old

“they [people of transylvania] are without... flavour.” “perhaps you mean character?” “ahahahaa.”

i feel like i should clarify that harker is staying in a convent, being cared for by nuns while he’s sick. he’s telling his story to badass nun and this other nun and the viewer is seeing what happened through cuts or whatever

okay you know just some book stuff is happening - dracula’s being a weirdo, johnny harker notices some odd goings on, etc.

so, this has always struck me - in the book as well - why is dracula always climbing up walls like a fucking lizard? why? first of all, he can turn in to a bat, so if he needs to get OVER the wall then he can fucking FLY. if he doesn’t need to get over the wall then wtf is he doing? harker is going to see or hear him - i mean, god knows he’s acted weirdly/suspiciously enough for harker to be scared/nervous around him - like??? dracula really is an idiot psychopath bisexual

harker’s having an *ehem* mildly i n n a p r o p r i a t e dream. he and mina are having sex but then mina turns into wrinkly old dracula. yucky yuck.

now harker sees ‘help us’ written on his window

it’s in english! very convenient for mr harker - so our wonderful nun points out: “you are an englishman: a combination of presumptions beyond compare.” (no hate to englishmen)

harker starts to explore the castle. uh oh.

he gets lost + dracula finds him

our man dracula is wining and dining johnny!

Dracula looks younger now. :| this is suspicious

dracula is EVEN YOUNGER! glow up!!!!

harker is starting notice there’s NO STAFF IN THE CASTLE... and his health is deteriorating

wow johnny is actually being very brave!! i must say i am proud

johnny is finding a bunch of old pictures in a wooden bin somewhere in the castle. are these dracula’s previous victims?? WHO KNOWS

FUCK there’s a fucking dead lady in the wooden bin. yuckkk i do not approve

she just chased him down this tunnel, and now dracula’s there and harker passes out

badass nun (agatha) is telling us about the UNDEAD. explains a lot

drac says he found johnny asleep on the floor in the basement, all the while looking SUSPICIOUSLY young.

HEY drac is calling him johnny! that’s my thing >:(

now johnny doesn’t recognize mina’s picture! what’s going on?

he’s making johnny write three letters to mina: one saying he’s almost leaving the castle, one saying he’s leaving the next day, and one saying he’s left safely, etc.

john’s hallucinating that a baby’s crying in the distance. OR IS HE?

harker is willing to sacrifice himself for a baby he doesn’t even know exists. i’m actually proud of how brave he is :’(

AGATHA!! i love her

so harker is starting to plot an escape - he looks for a map to the castle. he knows that drac said that it doesn’t exist but his reasoning is that the architect was an artist and would have wanted his art preserved. he finds the map in a painting of the architect’s dead wife (because she’s the sunlight of his life and he built this place to escape the actual sunlight when she died?? i think?? Sorry that was confusing)

so, the architect made hidden passages through the maze of the castle

harker finds a passage! yay

okay the passage led to a room, and in the room there’s a lady in a wooden box thing eating rats. she comes out of the box, she’s a vampire, and johnny’s talking to her. she left the message on the window earlier? maybe? this is unclear.

she bites john

harker askes nun agatha why she’s got no “faith” and she says “I have looked for god everywhere in this world and never found him.” “Then why are you here?” “Well, like many women of my age, I am trapped in a loveless marriage, maintaining appearances for the sake of a roof over my head.” GOD I LOVE THIS WOMAN

eww there’s a deadish baby in the box thing

drac kills the lady in the castle

harker: “you’re a monster!” drac: “and you’re a lawyer. nobody’s perfect.”

okay drac and harker have a suspenseful chat, bla bla bla. drac is trying to REPRODUCE?

If this turns into some fucking mpreg fanfiction bullshit i’m suing

drac goes outside onto a balcony thing in the castle w/ johnny and they lay down (drac in the shade and harker in the sun) and drac asks johnny to describe the sun to him?? cool i guess??

drac, about the sun: “But that’ll burn me to dust.” my man john harker: “Good.” “fair enough.”

i LOVE how johnny is literally on death’s door, and still manages to snark at the man who put him there

okay so john’s still outside w/ drac, it’s established that he’s either going to die (fully) or be stuck in the castle for the rest of his “life”. harker is shaking, bla bla, and he goes “drac! spare me!” and drac’s like “how, dude?” and then we cut to agatha and harker in the convent and it turns out that harker just wrote pages of shit like “dracula is my master!” “dracula will be obeyed!” “dracula is god!” when he got to the convent and it’s like... whew

turns out he thought he was writing an account of his stay at the castle but he really just wrote like 100 pages of that

oooookay - now, johnny’s begging drac to let him go and drac’s like “how?” and john says he won’t tell anyone about drac’s plans to move to england and kill everybody so drac’s like “sure,” and harker’s like “wait really,” and drac’s like “oooh i’m going to destroy everyone you love bla bla bla but if you swear you won’t try to stop me i’ll let you go.” UM.

but now harker gives this impressive last hurrah thing where he kinda like... climbs up dracula’s body? like drac pulls him? and he goes “i swear that if you let me out here alive... I’LL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO STOP YOU!” psych

and then drac kills him and he falls down

“SO HOW IS HE ALIVE?”, you ask

“HE’S A VAMPIRE,” i say

oh no! he’s not! my lovely agatha reveals that he’s “undead, but not a vampire,”

aggie: “it’s not something that one anticipates asking: but, what happened after you were murdered?”

okay so now johnny becomes undead and he still has a spirit! johnathan harker has a will, etc and he tries to jump off of the balcony thing. drac’s like hey you should stay w/ me! ur kinda like me u kno and john’s like NOPE

then the sun hits drac’s face and johnny falls from the balcony

now aggie reveals that a river, which john fell into, bore him out to sea and a fisherman found him caught in his net. he was brought to the convent/agatha

agatha: “i am known to have some expertise in the realm of witchcraft and the occult.” johnny: “You’re a nun.” ag: “We can discuss my imperfectly suppressed fascination with everything dark and evil another time.”

oh!!!!!! so - the sun reflected the cross that harker was wearing onto drac!!!! and that’s why drac fell/was hurt whatever

so basically like minor vampires and shit don’t fear the cross??? but big guy (drac) does?

agatha’s like “i looked everywhere and finally i found god!!!! yay” and she’s happy

OH FUCK!!! THE SECOND NUN IN THE ROOM IS MINA!!!

basically aggie found out who he was, traced him back to london, and found mina (she mentions a detective acquaintance - sherlock crossover, anyone?)

mina: “we are to be married, so who you are will always be my decision.”

they have a really touching “i still love u!!” type scene and then a bunch of fucking bats fly in

turns out drac’s at the convent now

mina got bitten (on her face) by a bat and she’s kinda bloody and harker’s like woooh take this stake so you can stab me if i try to drink that

god agatha has SO MANY good lines!!!

now dracula has turned into a wolf and he’s outside the gates of the convent

mina hugs johnathan and he licks her blood :(

now he backs her into a corner and tries to drink her blood, but then he stops and tries TO IMPALE HIMSELF ON THE WOODEN STAKE

the wolf has this really gross transformation scene and he turns into dracula as a human

OOKAY so a bunch of nuns come to the gates (i should clarify that that’s where dracula is) and they pull out wooden stakes and agatha’s like drac you’re going down.

agatha opens the gates of the convent!!! and tells dracula he’s not invited in and he can’t come in

agatha to drac: “I expect a beast to follow rules, I don’t expect it to understand them.”

agatha cuts her hand open and like taunts him w/ the blood

SHE’S AGATHA VAN HELSING OH MY GOD

THEY REALLY TURNED VAN HELSING INTO A WOMAN!!!!!

drac: “who are you?” agatha: “your every nightmare at once. an educated woman in a crucifix.” !!!!!!!!

OH FUCK!!!! johnathan really is dead!!!!! :((( i thought he wouldn’t be but nvm i guess

mina and aggie have a talk and mina says she’ll never love anybody else :’(

oh shit!!! i was right he isn’t dead! drac does that weird lizard wall climbing thing again and goes into his window and tells johnny that “suicide doesn’t work.” great.

dracula’s like hey bud i can kill you properly! since it needs another person! all you’ve gotta do is invite me in! :))))))

we cut to the mother superior and she’s giving a nice little lecture about god

and then dracula comes in and cuts her head off

the nuns are obviously terrified BUT they’ve got their crosses and they push him away, whatever, but then drac calls a bunch of wolves

“I’m undead, I’m not unreasonable.”

the nuns get attacked by the wolves EXCEPT for agatha and mina, who went to agatha’s workshop to escape

harker comes down to the workshop! (which they surrounded by sacramental bread or something) and they’re arguing over whether they should let him in and mina’s like i’m gonna do it! and she almost does but she sees that harker’s eyes aren’t blue anymore, so she’s like hey what’s up with that and then harker starts PEELING HIS FACE OFF and it’s dracula

THE END OF EPISODE ONE

phewwwwwww. So this is almost 2000 words? And very incoherent. If you’ve had the courage to read this far, thank you.

IN CONCLUSION: will i keep watching this show? yes. i’m very squeamish so i’ll probably skip some of the gory stuff later on but other than that i will definitely continue.

did i like this show? YES. i honestly started it with very low expectations but so far it’s really good. to be fair, though, i found that in the book the beginning was the best part and i didn’t love it after, so i guess we’ll see.

did i like it better than the book? so far, yeah. The book was full of bullshit like “ooh you have a man’s brain and a woman’s heart,” to mina, which :/. (obviously it’s not like i could have expected much better from a male victorian author but still.) i love how they made van helsing a woman! I know agatha is going to be wonderful.

#dracula #bbc #bbc dracula #this is so long #i'm sorry #agatha van helsing #mina murray #johnathan harker #mine

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tipsycad147 · 4 years

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Gemini May World Dracula Day

By shirleytwofeathers

May 26 is World Dracula Day which commemorates Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror novel Dracula, which was first published on May 26 in 1897, by Archibald Constable and Company in Britain. It sold for six shillings and came bound in yellow cloth with red lettering. It was first printed in the United States two years later, by Doubleday & McClure of New York City. Although not the first novel about vampires, it became a model for the genre, and laid the foundation for future vampire stories, with its introduction of the character Count Dracula.

The quintessential vampire, Count Dracula has inspired tens of films and stories the world over, not to mention the virtual immortality of the character during as a beloved Halloween character. For all of these reasons, it’s undeniable that this icon of horror more than deserves his own little holiday so the world can show its appreciation for his contributions to the worlds of cinema and literature over the centuries. So put on your fangs, and let’s sink out teeth right into this, shall we?

About The Book

The book follows (spoiler alert!) an English lawyer named Jonathan Harker as he travels to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula at his castle, Castle Dracula. To Harker, Dracula appears pale and off-kilter. The strangeness of Dracula is more apparent after he lunges at Harker’s throat after Harker cuts himself while shaving. Harker eventually finds out that Dracula is a vampire who needs to drink human blood to survive. Afterward, Dracula locks Harker in the castle and flees to England with 50 boxes of dirt (it is believed he needs dirt from his home country to stay healthy). As Dracula heads to England to search for new blood, Harker eventually escapes from the castle.

Meanwhile, Mina, Harker’s fiancée, is visiting her friend Lucy in England. One night, Mina finds Lucy sleepwalking by a graveyard. Mina believes she sees a creature hovering over Lucy for a moment, and then notices two red marks on Lucy’s neck. Lucy becomes sick over the next few days and is then cared for by a Dr. Seward and by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, before eventually dying. Afterward, strange reports begin surfacing that a creature has been attacking children in the area.

Jonathan Harker and Mina are reunited and married. Harker tells Dr. Helsing about his experience with Dracula, and Helsing then believes Lucy contracted vampirism from him and is the one attacking children. They dig up her corpse, cut off her head, put a stake through her heart, and stuff her mouth with garlic. They then turn their focus to Dracula and try to destroy his boxes of dirt. He escapes back to Transylvania, where they find him buried in the last box of dirt. They cut off his head and stab him through the heart, causing him to collapse into dust.

The Origins Of Dracula

Stoker spent years researching vampires before writing Dracula. During that time, he was particularly influenced by “Transylvanian Superstitions,” an essay by Emily Gerard that was published in 1885. Stoker worked at the Lyceum Theatre in London from 1878 to 1898. The theater was headed by Henry Irving, who Stoker based Dracula’s mannerisms on. It was even Stoker’s hope that Irving would play Dracula in a stage adaptation, but it did not happen.

According to one theory, Prince Vlad III of Wallachia (Romania) was the real-life inspiration behind Stoker’s gothic horror novel. An extremely cruel and merciless ruler, Vlad earned the nickname “Vlad the Impaler” for the many ways he tortured his opponents as well as people who betrayed him when they were captured. As can be guessed from his nickname, impaling was his favourite method of execution, and it is thought that he killed up to 100,000 people during his reign, and was infamous for the “forests” of impaled victims he left behind when he won a battle. One unsubstantiated account says that he dipped bread in his victims’ blood and ate it in front of them as they died on stakes.

Born in Transylvania in the fifteenth century, he was also called Drăculea, which means “Son of Dracul.” Indeed, his father was known as Dracul, a name that derived from the knightly order he belonged to—the Order of the Dragon (the Latin word draco means dragon). In modern Romanian, drac means “devil.”

It is believed that Stoker picked the name Dracula after learning this more modern translation. Some believe that the only connection between Vlad III and Dracula are their names. The connection of his character with vampirism was made by Bram Stoker around the 1890’s, and has become a permanent element of pop culture since then.

What does it mean?

Dracula has been interpreted in numerous ways. Some have interpreted the story as an allegory of the fear that western Europeans had of eastern Europeans coming into their area. Hence, the story of someone coming from Transylvania—in Romania—to London and wreaking havoc on its residents. This theme appeared in other novels of the time.

Some have seen the book as a reaction to the conservative and patriarchal norms of the Victorian period, and as an exploration of suppressed sexual desire. Some also have seen the book as being about the relationship between the past and future, with Dracula symbolising a primitive past that challenges modernity.

The Historical Vampire

The concept of vampirism dates back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks, Hebrews, Egyptians and Babylonians all had legends telling hair-raising tales of demon-like undead creatures that lived off of the blood of the living.

Tales of the undead consuming the blood or flesh of living beings have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries. Today we know these entities predominantly as vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire did not exist; blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood; even the devil was considered synonymous with the vampire.

Almost every nation has associated blood drinking with some kind of revenant or demon, from the ghouls of Arabia to the goddess Sekhmet of Egypt. Indeed, some of these legends could have given rise to the European folklore, though they are not strictly considered vampires by historians when using today’s definitions.

Hebrews, ancient Greeks, and Romans had tales of demonic entities and blood-drinking spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampire-like creatures in these ancient civilisations, the folklore for the entity we know today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century Southeastern Europe, particularly Transylvania as verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire itself. Belief in such legends became so rife that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.

In India, tales of vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. Although most vetala legends have been compiled in the Baital Pachisi, a prominent story in the Kathasaritsagara tells of King Vikramāditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive one. The vetala is described as an undead creature who, like the bat associated with modern-day vampirism, hangs upside down on trees found on cremation grounds and cemeteries. Pishacha, the returned spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane, also bear vampiric attributes.

The Hebrew word “Alukah” (literal translation is “leech”) is synonymous with vampirism or vampires, as is “Motetz Dam” (literally, “blood sucker”). Later vampire traditions appear among diaspora Jews in Central Europe, in particular the medieval interpretation of Lilith. In common with vampires, this version of Lilith was held to be able to transform herself into an animal, usually a cat, and charm her victims into believing that she is benevolent or irresistible. However, she and her daughters usually strangle rather than drain victims, and in the Kabbalah, she retains many attributes found in vampires.

A late 17th- or early 18th-century Kabbalah document was found in one of the Ritman library’s copies of Jean de Pauly’s translation of the Zohar. The text contains two amulets, one for male (lazakhar), the other for female (lanekevah). The invocations on the amulets mention Adam, Eve, and Lilith, Chavah Rishonah and the angels—Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari’el, and Hasdi’el. A few lines in Yiddish are shown as dialog between the prophet Elijah and Lilith, in which she has come with a host of demons to kill the mother, take her newborn and “to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh”. She informs Elijah that she will lose power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end.

Other Jewish stories depict vampires in a more traditional way. In “The Kiss of Death”, the daughter of the demon king Ashmodai snatches the breath of a man who has betrayed her, strongly reminiscent of a fatal kiss of a vampire. A rare story found in Sefer Hasidim #1465 tells of an old vampire named Astryiah who uses her hair to drain the blood from her victims. A similar tale from the same book describes staking a witch through the heart to ensure she does not come back from the dead to haunt her enemies.

More about Vampires can be found at The Powers That Be.

How to celebrate Dracula Day

Celebrating all things Dracula why not throw a party and get your friends round for the ultimate film binge. Ideas for creating the perfect atmosphere include giving your party a Gothic feel by making sure all of your decorations are either black or blood red, the table setting is rather sophisticated, everyone is dressed elegantly and wears fangs, hanging up plenty of bat and spider web decorations, and serving plenty of blood red drinks.

It would also be perfect to watch one or more of the classic vampire movies to have been made, such as the 1958 British classic titled simply “Dracula”, and starring the incredibly impressive Christopher Lee as the aristocratic titular character. Other movie choices include “Nosferatu”, a 1922 German expressionist horror film, and “Interview with the Vampire” starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and a young Kirsten Dunst.

If it’s something more lighthearted you’re looking for, Roman Polański’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck” will keep everyone entertained. Lesser known, but equally fun movies include Suck (one of my personal favourites), and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

If you don’t plan on hosting a party, that does not mean you have to miss out on Dracula day—take the time to delve into the world created by Bran Stoker in his acclaimed novel. Reading a good book has never hurt anyone, and in the era social media’s 140-character blurbs of text, it is ever more important to keep the art of literature alive.

If you’ve already read it, consider tackling Anne Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles”, a series of 11 critically acclaimed books that follow influential vampires all throughout history. Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot”. As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to celebrate the vampires of the world this Dracula Day!

Vampire Magick:

If you get really excited about all this talk of vampires, blood, and the undead, you might even be interested in exploring spells to “become a vampire.” Alternatively, you might want to play around with some protection against vampires spells, vampire prevention spells, or even a peaceful coexistence spell. They can all be found in the Book of Shadows, and Gypsy Magick and Lore.

Sources:

Days Of The Year

Checkiday

Wikipedia

https://shirleytwofeathers.com/The_Blog/pagancalendar/category/may-holidays/

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