Huh? He drains Jonathan and leaves him so weak he’s out of the story for months. He successfully migrates to England, killing the entire ship’s crew on the way. He lives in London for months, killing many locals while he does so. He kills and transforms Lucy. He comes incredibly close to also turning Mina. His minions kill Quincy Morris in the climax of the story.
For sure, it’s a very old book that really doesn’t follow the storytelling conventions we would expect today in terms of how the pacing of tension and the back-and-forth between protagonists and antagonists work. But it’s a far cry from “one W before the ultimate L”. Hell, basically the entire first half of the book is all Ws for D.
Idk, when I read it, it seemed he killed like 3 people “on stage” and one was by turning. The ships crew is kind of a throw away mention. I didnt really feel like the first half was all Ws. Maybe because all the people he supposedly kills are just a number, and the main cast is all gods among men seemingly fit perfect for the job of stopping Dracula. It just felt silly and not that deadly reading it to me. But he just moves to London, needs his dirt, and it says months but as soon as the protagonists catch on he is almost immediately ousted. So yeah that’s a win but only because he stayed under the nose of some other normal humans. Idk it didnt read as all that powerful to me.
Yeah he doesn’t actually kill that many on screen. Lucy, Renfield, I’ve seen some say he killed Mrs Westenra (though my memory is her death was natural), and I think we can also credit him with the deaths of the baby (more directly killed by his Brides) and Quincy (more directly killed by his Roma allies).
the main cast is all gods among men
It is true, the heroes lack the degree of struggle we’d expect in modern novels. I’d rather describe them as men among god, given the themes of the book.
But I think looking at number of on-screen deaths is missing the point of it. It’s kind of the equivalent of analysing the quality of a movie by looking at how many dings Cinema Sins gave it/how many plot holes it has. It’s ignoring the themes, the tone, everything that actually matters. By runtime, Dracula is on top longer than he’s not. The entire time Jonathan is in Transylvania, the entire length of Mina and Lucy’s conversations, his trip to England, and even a fair while in England. Even once the heroes of light start fighting back, he is simultaneously in the middle of turning Mina.
He felt scary to readers a the time, and I contend he is still frightening to readers today, because of all that. Because although he isn’t the sort of unbeatable cosmic horror of something like Lovecraft, he is a deeply personal horror that can be threatening you without you knowing even after you know he’s there and are trying to fight back.
Its definitely a times thing. Like nowadays if you wanted that you’d have Dracula kill most of the main cast if not all, only losing his life on the last one. Vampires just have too many rules to be scary for me.
The original Dracula similarly gets his ass handed to him at each turn in the pages of the book. I think he has like one W before the ultimate L.
Huh? He drains Jonathan and leaves him so weak he’s out of the story for months. He successfully migrates to England, killing the entire ship’s crew on the way. He lives in London for months, killing many locals while he does so. He kills and transforms Lucy. He comes incredibly close to also turning Mina. His minions kill Quincy Morris in the climax of the story.
For sure, it’s a very old book that really doesn’t follow the storytelling conventions we would expect today in terms of how the pacing of tension and the back-and-forth between protagonists and antagonists work. But it’s a far cry from “one W before the ultimate L”. Hell, basically the entire first half of the book is all Ws for D.
Idk, when I read it, it seemed he killed like 3 people “on stage” and one was by turning. The ships crew is kind of a throw away mention. I didnt really feel like the first half was all Ws. Maybe because all the people he supposedly kills are just a number, and the main cast is all gods among men seemingly fit perfect for the job of stopping Dracula. It just felt silly and not that deadly reading it to me. But he just moves to London, needs his dirt, and it says months but as soon as the protagonists catch on he is almost immediately ousted. So yeah that’s a win but only because he stayed under the nose of some other normal humans. Idk it didnt read as all that powerful to me.
Yeah he doesn’t actually kill that many on screen. Lucy, Renfield, I’ve seen some say he killed Mrs Westenra (though my memory is her death was natural), and I think we can also credit him with the deaths of the baby (more directly killed by his Brides) and Quincy (more directly killed by his Roma allies).
It is true, the heroes lack the degree of struggle we’d expect in modern novels. I’d rather describe them as men among god, given the themes of the book.
But I think looking at number of on-screen deaths is missing the point of it. It’s kind of the equivalent of analysing the quality of a movie by looking at how many dings Cinema Sins gave it/how many plot holes it has. It’s ignoring the themes, the tone, everything that actually matters. By runtime, Dracula is on top longer than he’s not. The entire time Jonathan is in Transylvania, the entire length of Mina and Lucy’s conversations, his trip to England, and even a fair while in England. Even once the heroes of light start fighting back, he is simultaneously in the middle of turning Mina.
He felt scary to readers a the time, and I contend he is still frightening to readers today, because of all that. Because although he isn’t the sort of unbeatable cosmic horror of something like Lovecraft, he is a deeply personal horror that can be threatening you without you knowing even after you know he’s there and are trying to fight back.
Its definitely a times thing. Like nowadays if you wanted that you’d have Dracula kill most of the main cast if not all, only losing his life on the last one. Vampires just have too many rules to be scary for me.