Where in the World is Jonathan Harker?

I think I personally will not.

BUT, it was super fun last year, so: I will leave this post in the tag for two hours and then I will free up this url for anyone who wants to take up the torch. I hope someone does, with my blessing.

this is fine i m f i ne

Okay so like the thing about Jonathan is that he really ought to be dead.

I was building out the cast as Deadlands (wild west ttrpg) characters and like, the only way to adequately built out Jonathan was literally dead. The man could not more obviously be Harrowed.

When we were first talking about monster!Jonathan really early on (before any of it had really happened) and saying what if all of them were turning into Something, my thought was well obviously Jonathan is a ghost. This man is made to be a ghost.

When I was learning about the Lenore story quoted in the beginning (for the dead ride fast) it was such This Could Be You vibes. He works so well as some kind of Revenant.

Because like. His whole thing is that he's got Unfinished Business. He's supposed to get married! And of course he starts this whole thing with Dracula - how can he ever rest (in any sense of the word) until he finishes it? If he's not getting out of the castle alive then by God he's getting out dead. One way or another.

Jonathan Harker is a perfect Romantic Hero, and the thing about those guys is - they're dead. And I'm not saying that Dracula would be a better novel if Jonathan were dead in it, but I am saying you could tell a different story, a Romantic (rather than Gothic or techno-thriller) story, where everything is the same except it's revealed in the end that Jonathan died in the castle. And that story would slap. Like, they kill Dracula, Mina is healed, yadda yadda yadda, and then at the foot of the cliff they find his body. And it's clearly been dead for months but it's still holding the diary... only all the entries past June 30th are blank. But, and here's the important bit, he's wearing his wedding ring.

And like, I wouldn't trade baby Quincey and the hard-won happy ending for worlds, but if not for the fact that Jonathan is very demonstrably alive at the end of the novel I would be convinced he'd been dead for most of it. And it the book had been written 70 years earlier...?

(Around mid September I toyed with the idea of designing a Mansions of Madness scenario where you're Investigating the mysterious death of Mr Peter Hawkins and naturally the Harkers are there being Deeply Unsettling and overall Extremely Suspicious and I was like "hm, so do I make Mina a vampire or do I make Jonathan a ghost... or both?" The twist would be that neither of them had killed him of course, they were just independently Eldritch in some way and again, Benevolent Dead is the obvious obvious choice for Jonathan. At first he's all weird and creepy and suspicious and then it's just like "oh no never mind he's just Literally Dead it's all good.")

Anyone here a fan of Semisonic? I rediscovered "If I run" a couple of days ago, and you know what they say, any song is a blorbo song if you are sufficiently committed, but part of the refrain goes:

Keep thinking of the day I die and I lose my heavy load / but I wouldn't want to leave you behind

And this is very much how I see Jonathan. I was struck by his line (June 29th I think) "God help me and those to whom I am dear." He's not praying for the people he loves - he's praying for the people who love him. Because it's not about him. This is a man wholly secure in his relationship. He knows he is loved, and he knows that because he is loved, his loss will be a harm to others. (This is why I wrote the line "she would never see him again" instead of the other way around). And we see this again with his Promise - "she shall not go into that dark and terrible land alone." It's easy to (mis)read this as him not being able to bear the thought of losing her - but it's the other way around. It's not about him - it's about anything that might give her some scrap or shred of comfort, whatever the cost. It's about her not being alone.

And so if he had the option of abandoning his body to its torments, dooming his soul to wander the earth, but by so doing giving her some closure - of course he would. What is his own rest compared to that? Any scrap or shred of comfort, even the cold comfort of a dead man. Think of how many times he bids her goodbye in those first four chapters. He's important to her, and that is what's important to him.

There's a post that comes around periodically about the American Civil War and how it brought death on a never before seen scale, especially impersonal death, far away, an implication with no confirmation or closure - and the effect this had on literature and folklore. And it ended with a beautiful summation that I am going to end on as well:

It's not 100% clear because Stoker is pretty vague about where Dracula's castle is - Wikipedia has a good summary. It's probably somewhere in this red circle:

If you'd like somewhere utterly stunning that's within a plausible travel distance, I would pick the shores of Lake Colibița because - well, just look at it:

My German isn't great either - I was going for a variation on "Denn die Todten reiten schnell" (for the Dead travel fast) - the quotation from Lenore back on May 5th. But the nominal -ing construction is pretty unique to English, or if there is a way to say "riding fast" in a nouny sort of way in German I don't know it

But it is what it is. Jonathan is snowboarding his way after Dracula now. Cuz of all the snow, you see.

On it boss

My German isn't great either - I was going for a variation on "Denn die Todten reiten schnell" (for the Dead travel fast) - the quotation from Lenore back on May 5th. But the nominal -ing construction is pretty unique to English, or if there is a way to say "riding fast" in a nouny sort of way in German I don't know it

But it is what it is. Jonathan is snowboarding his way after Dracula now. Cuz of all the snow, you see.

A quick update on everyone's progress:

Mina and Van Helsing (gold star) hoped yesterday that they would reach the Borgo Pass by this morning.

Jack and Quincey (blue star) have reached Fundu so are not far behind, though they don't seem to be following the river as closely as they were.

I don't want to make jokes in such tense entry where every step the crew takes is one step closer to confronting Dracula, but... where did they get this flag? Really from where? Because I don't think people were mass producing flags of their country in the 19th century.

(advert from the Boston Directory, 1886)

Galați (Galatz) is part of Moldavia; Borgo Pass (Tihuța Pass, now) is sort of in the border area between Transylvania and Moldavia, so it may not have been considered part of Romania proper at the time (I'm not sure precisely where the border was, Bistrița/Bistriz is on the Transylvania side), but the route they were taking through Moldavia was certainly part of the fairly new kingdom of Romania.

Fundu, where they are now, is in Suceava county, which was divided between Moldavia and the separate region of Bukovina. Not sure what side of the border Fundu proper is in, they may have decided to go with a Romanian flag to say, yep, all good, we're well-established in Romania, certainly not newcomers or anything.

Interestingly, Galați is sort of a confluence area. The Danube traces the border between Romania and Ukraine, and Galați itself is almost right at the point where Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova (the modern-day country, although it was part of Moldavia then) meet, and it's right on the Wallachia-Moldavia border (it's in Moldavia; the next-nearest town, Brăila, which it has a major rivalry with, is Wallachia).

(b) How is he to be taken?—Here a process of exclusions may help us. By road, by rail, by water?

Here Mina begins laying out the three routes the Count was forced to choose between, and the strengths and weaknesses of each. After hearing her read this memorandum, the men each immediately spot a way they can be helpful in exploiting one of these weaknesses.

By Road. —There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city. (x) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. (y) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass. (z) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear; and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victim—me!

"I [shall get] horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land," said Mr. Morris.

2. By Rail.—There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track. True, he might escape at night; but what would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it.

Van Helsing says (among other things), "we shall go in the track where Jonathan went,—from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula... There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated."

3. By Water.—Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate. We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do is to ascertain what water.

"I shall get a steam launch and follow him," said Lord Godalming.

Our protagonists have the numbers to take all three routes, and cut Dracula off by any of them! And, by the power of Judge Moneybag, they can do so quickly.

It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do; and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment's notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train to-night for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. 

Teams B and C are taking essentially the same route, it's just that Jonathan and Arthur are taking a launch on the river, while Jack and Quincey are taking horses and following the route of the river from high ground.

Team A are going a different route, taking the train from Galatz to Veresti, then taking a carriage to the Borgo Pass.

Drawing on this excellent post by @no-side-us, I think the two routes look more-or-less like this, with the red star as Dracula's castle (though they hope to catch Dracula before he gets that far).

The red route is teams B and C; the blue route is team A. I've tried to recreate the train route from this map but I drew that line freehand in powerpoint so please treat it as (very) approximate.

Their travelling speeds will also vary:

Train: averaging 40mph, maybe faster for some parts of the journey

Horse: up to 100 miles per day (says this blog) but probably much less over uneven countryside

Steam launch: one example from the 1890s did 8.3mph

Carriage and horses: assuming stagecoach speeds, up to 10mph

Teams B and C have about 220 miles to cover; team A more like 250 miles (175 miles by train, 75 miles by carriage). I think.