a half-abandoned mess and a space for fandom miscellany.
I'm mostly just expecting to sort by fandoms for now - you're welcome to ask if you want something tagged, and I'll let you know if I can or if you might not want to follow me.
currently tagging:
personal posts ā #falderal speaks
serious topics ā #serious stuff
general angst ā #angst tag
nsfw but not enough to warrant the community labels ā #suggestive
depictions and graphic descriptions of blood and injury etc ā #gore
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God the moment I realized that the āholiest loveā references for Jonathan and Mina wasnāt some uwu purity sanctified good little married thing but him deciding that loving Mina is more important than salvation itself. That heād rather be with her than in heaven. That if God rejects Mina, that GOD is wrong. IāM SO FERAL OVER THIS IāM SHAKING
What makes me feral about it all is that this is not a rushed decision that Jonathan made, without knowing what it entails. He said "I've made up my mind".
He thought about it first. After having known vampires for months in a terrible and unknown land where he couldn't tell nightmare and reality, where after leaving it his mind finally broke, never truly escape his prison. Where he had chosen certain death as a man than vampirism. After praying. After being saved by the grace of God. The second he got well he resolved to find Dracula and stop his ranks from growing.
AND YET. He chooses damnation. Because his love and passion for Mina is hotter than the flames of hell and holier than heaven's light???
So, most of you who have been following me for a while will have noticed that I'm a personal fan of Van Helsing as a character. I like him a lot, I have a strong attachment to the character. Maybe I put a more positive spin on him than I sometimes should, maybe I let my feelings get the better of me. But this entry, the 13 September entry, is what cemented my positive impression of him.
I've talked about how Van Helsing subverts what we expect from the Old Supernatural Expert. When I first read this entry as a teenager, I had already consumed an awful lot of horror media, most of it fairly bog-standard and derivative (didn't stop me from enjoying it). I was used to certain conventions. Mrs. Westenra's accidentally wrecking things while having good intentions didn't surprise me, that's a very common trope. What did surprise me-- what stuck with me-- is that Van Helsing didn't start ranting and raving and calling her a stupid old woman, even in private.
That's in character with the Old Supernatural Expert, raving against stupidity. I fully expected Van Helsing to start doing it, and I would have been pretty uncritical at the time. Now of course it's obvious he should have told Mrs. Westenra the flowers were medicinal in the first place; garlic in various forms has a long pedigree as a medicine, that's probably why it's got positive supernatural associations. As he does now, he could have done it before in such a way that it wouldn't seem too shocking. But it's the prerogative of the Old Supernatural Expert to rave against stupidity, and let's be honest-- it's pretty maddening that Mrs. Westenra's very first impulse was to assume the flowers were somehow harmful and remove them all, especially since she flatters herself thinking she's been just as helpful as the doctors.
When I first read this book, I expected Van Helsing to do some good old fashioned railing against the stupidity he has to contend with. But he doesn't.
"God! God! God!" he said. "What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset?
Now, this could be read a few different ways; The first time I read it, I took it forthrightly to be Van Helsing lamenting that they messed up by not telling Mrs. Westenra what was going on. And of course there's the rhetorical 'what have we or Lucy done to deserve this?' But when he goes on talking about "fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old", I think what he is referring to is the ancient Greek concept of hubris. Hubris was more than arrogance to the Greeks, it was placing yourself outside the natural order of things, disregarding the personal limits that come with being human, thinking you didn't need to worry about gods, fate, or nature.
And as I have mentioned elsewhere, Van Helsing's core flaw is how much he takes his ability to control the situations around him for granted. As much good as he wills, he doesn't always take all the precautions he might when it comes to the behavior of others-- he didn't instruct John explicitly to sleep during the day so as not to be worn out at night, and he didn't tell Mrs. Westenra the flowers were medicinal. In both cases, perhaps he assumed they would behave in what seemed to him a sensible manner-- what frankly would have been a sensible manner. But he could have talked to them. And Lucy is suffering because he didn't. Hubris is punished by Nemesis. I think that is how Van Helsing perceives the current situation; I think he is somewhat aware of his own flaws, even if he doesn't connect all the dots. Working in theatre as Stoker did, I think it's not unreasonable to posit that that's the formula he had in mind.
Van Helsing could foist all the blame for what's happened on Mrs. Westenra, but he doesn't. Not even privately. Oh, let me be frank: It would be pretty cathartic if he did start cussing her out the moment she left the room. But the fact that he doesn't endears him to me. After his minor breakdown, he immediately goes to help Lucy, and doesn't waste any more breath casting aspersions. That's a rare quality in a person. He even feels sorry for Mrs. Westenra, and acknowledges she only did what she did because she thought she was helping.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into this-- wouldn't be the first time. But here is where I see that 'all-embracing sympathy' come to the fore, and I think it's something valuable. To borrow a phrase: He charm me.
If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us.
The fog is moving with them. And the Captain sandwiches this revelation by talking about God. Only God could get them out of this fog, but He's abandoned them. This isn't quite equivalent to saying that Dracula (who is no doubt making the fog move with them) is equivalent to God/at least the devil, but it does start to trend in that direction.
By which I mean, near the end of this journey, Dracula gets characterized in several very powerful ways. From this line, to the mate later going from referring to him as "It" to capital-H "He" (similar to how people talk about god) as soon as he encounters him, to Mr. Swales talking about sensing Death coming and then Dracula killing him... I even wonder if it extends to Renfield's religious references in a way that I don't get. Jonathan compares various vampires to demons, and van Helsing says Dracula has made a deal with the devil at one point, but both of those seem smaller-scale than what is going on now. Dracula's power is so huge and irresistible and terrible, that for some it seems to cast him almost as some kind of evil deity. And in doing so, he is elevated from an individual who can be faced or defeated.
In a sense, the entire Lucy plot does this too, though not in quite the same language and he's characterized more as a disease they try and fail to stave off. I guess it is more a middle ground between the power seen here/in the next few days, and the individual creature/person that Jonathan's journal reveals him to be. It's only when he's been seen and thus reduced in scale down from a Him to a him that he can be fought successfully.
I don't really know if that all makes sense (and don't know much about religion in any case), but it feels interesting.
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btw guys, you can do spoiler text on AO3! here's the html:
<details><summary>the text you want people to see</summary>The text you want to spoiler or hide</details>
it turns it into a little toggleable drop down that shows things and then hides them. it's great for content warnings in ao3 notes if you're worried about spoiling your fic--people who feel like they can proceed without any specific warnings can do so but people who want to see a warning or spoiler can choose to.
i tried it on firewatch au chapter three, it works:
if that html doesn't work, then here's the reddit comment i got it from by an r/ao3 moderator and former ao3 staff memeber. I copied it from here and it worked perfectly, but it didn't paste into tumblr so I manually typed it.
Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany came out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away.
Looking at this through a lens of "hey maybe they aren't all racist stereotypes and actually would like to help". Admittedly the laughter and deliberate ignoring makes it harder this time around to interpret their reactions as anything but mocking. But it's that last line which I find most compelling. Resolutely. It can imply a sort of effort being put into turning away, that it might be very difficult to do. Like they find it genuinely painful to have to ignore someone screaming and begging for help. But they know they do have to.
Who knows what the hetman said. The laughter makes it seem like a joke, though a mean-spirited one. But maybe this is more of that black humor the coach driver showed on May 5 when he made jokes about Jonathan likely meeting many fierce dogs before he sleeps. He "looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest" with this line, and I think that making macabre jokes is a very human reaction to being force to deal with/live under the rule of Dracula. To a certain extent, what else can you even do but try to laugh about it? So perhaps the hetman says something along the lines of, "The Count's beloved guest is not so excited to continue his stay," and everyone laughs because yeah, you can say that again. But they all stop looking at him right away, because he is the Count's beloved guest and they know what that means. If Dracula wants to keep him then trying to help in any way would only bring danger down on their own heads. Also, by trying to ignore him, they're trying not to acknowledge that they are leaving someone in this situation.
If we go with the "the guy last time genuinely tried to deliver Jonathan's letter but Dracula took it from him by force" interpretation then perhaps one person has already been harmed or even killed for trying to aid this 'guest'. Maybe they've been warned about him prior to their arrival, even, told specifically not to acknowledge him. Who knows. Meanwhile, from Jonathan's POV, of course their laughter feels mocking, of course their avoidance is painful - not only because another shot at hope is slipping away but because they seem to be playing right into the view of them which Dracula himself worked to predispose Jonathan towards: loyal to Dracula and not caring about his plight.
But I personally like this interpretation much better. Not only is it less of a caricature, but it reinforces the trend of people/side characters for the most part being basically good and wanting to either help or just do their jobs, but getting used by/unable to stand up to Dracula along the way. Also, the disconnect between them feeling deeply uncomfortable and cracking jokes/avoiding looking at Jonathan to try and deal with that - but as a result of these actions being read by him as showing evidence of genuine amusement/lack of care - is honestly really good tragic horror to me.
Especially when it comes after this line: "With joy I hurried to the window..." I'm pretty sure that's the only time Jonathan has used the word 'joy'. Even despite his failure last time (and despite using some racist/insulting descriptions of them), he was initially delighted to hear and see other people. And then it all came crashing down, once again. The impact hits even harder if you choose to believe they didn't want this either, I think.
Heās chucking all of Draculaās possessions out the window, one at a time, as revenge for Dracula taking his. Its gradual enough that Dracula doesnt really notice until he walks into a room and is like āā¦ Why is there nothing in this room?ā
The pile of stuff outside Jonathans window becomes so large that it can reach to his window from the ground and Jonathan realizes he can climb down it and escape. So he does.
In July, Dracula must go on an adventure to IKEA to replace all the furniture Jonathan threw out the window.
I just caught up on Dracula Daily and like- god reading Lucy as an adultā¦. The tragedy of her character is brought into so much more focus. Itās not that sheās a harlot or a flirt. She shows herself to be quite caring of others and aware of her position and the etiquette she must abide byā¦ and in that is her fault! She wants so badly to say yes to these guys because she does care for them even if she doesnāt love them the way they would like. She has such a hard time saying no, not because she necessarily wants to marry them, but because they are good men who she feels for and she feels bad saying no because she does not with to hurt them or lose them, both of which she sees as inevitabilities. Itās classic AFAB people pleaser bs, mixed with extremely stratified Victorian gender relations ideas of propriety. Much like Johnathan she is doomed by her culture and the expectations of politeness.
I'm not going to write a post about this myself, but amidst the fun of the three suitors in today's entry, if you're a first-time reader who may have psychiatric abuse, institutionalization, etc. as mental health or trauma triggers, I recommend checking out this excellent post by @crepuscol last year which marks off which Seward updates involve the asylum and doctor-patient interactions, as that part of the story involving him and Renfield starts tomorrow on May 25; I know someone last year also wrote detailed summaries of those entries for people who might not want or be able to read them directly, but I don't remember who it was - if anyone does, please add a link!
This could be an entire post itself, so I'll try to keep this brief, but Seward is arguably the most complex character in terms of morality in a story where everyone else is either Good or Evil, as he is ultimately capable of both great heroism and great harm, even if he harbours no evil intent; as such, he is a difficult character to discuss on many levels and things will get heated for understandable reasons, but it's important to remember that we should look at his character as a whole - neither sanitizing nor exaggerating his bad actions, neither erasing his good actions nor using them to excuse the bad ones - in good faith when analyzing him, as all aspects of him are important to the narrative and themes.
Also, since we're all doing Dracula Daily for fun, no one is obligated to read those updates if you can't or don't want to, and similarly, be understanding of those people even if you disagree, especially when a lot of the ableism in those entries still happens today, as psychiatric wards are the modern successor to asylums.
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I like the reading that the Romani did actually try to post Jonathan's letters, that they were caught by Dracula, and he then lied about their duplicity to Jonathan. It's clearly not the read that Bram intended, but he's dead, and I'm not. (Yes, that was a Death of the Author joke)
Anyway, let's take this a logical step further! In a mirroring of what he did with the three roommates, what if this was another "test" both for Jonathan and the Romani.
He knows he's going to have to start having people around again soon to help with the arrangements for the trip, but (if you ascribe to the idea that he hadn't initially planned to let Jonathan live after his initial use was done) he hadn't accounted for his captive to still be running about the castle.
He's already seen proof that Gothic Heroine Jonathan Harker has the power to turn even the most cowed peasants to his side, as seen by the townsfolk and the carriage folk already, so now he's got to nip this in the bud because Jonathan needs to think he is isolated, needs to view him as his only form of safety.
So, Dracula carefully keeps watch, and lo and behold, the Romani DO attempt to help Jonathan. Well, it's a good thing he anticipated this.
So, he interrupts the delivery of the letters, maybe pushes the idea that he's omniscient of all that goes on in Castle Dracula cause who's going to call him out and people are less likely to attempt anything if they are under constant surveillance, maybe maims or kills a few people to really push the consequences of helping again.
Okay, that's one part done. Now, for Jonathan, he can once more enforce the idea that Jonathan can only turn to him for protection, increase his feelings of isolation, and destroy his trust. He can happily torment him as he sees fit, and everyone is too shaken by their disastrous first attempt to try again.
Anyway, long story short, interpreting the text as "maybe the Romani people are good and aren't a racist caricature" actually gives a more interesting reading. Also, it allows them to parralel Jonathan's plight as people who are forced due to circumstances to obey Dracula, as he is the least likely to kill them right this second.
So Iāve seen a few people posting about this reading and I really like it. One, it does away with racist stereotypes that were likely implied in the original text, and two, itās perfectly in line with Draculaās character. Of course heād lie to Jonathan about the letters; heās already been lying about everything, anyway.
However, this reading has another implication- by lying about the good intentions of someone in the outside world, Dracula may also be getting Jonathan to question the motivations of other people. Remember all those peasants earlier who gave him protective gifts? Itās the kindness of strangers thatās proven the most effective weapon against Dracula so far, and the Romani man who tried to deliver the letter may just be another instance of that. Dracula wants himself to be the only person Jonathan can turn to, so of course heād portray anyone trying to help him as duplicitous and untrustworthy.
The comedic timing of Jack's diary entry coming first being like "I'm depressed and not feeling up to much, so I'm going to double down on working myself to the bone so I don't have to think about it" and the Quincy's letter coming straight after "Jack's going to join us at our campfire! There's going to be alcohol! We're going to talk out our feelings in a safe space surrounded by friends!"
Meanwhile, there he is: this is his first client, this is his first step into really building his career. Do yāall think heās gonna let some local beliefs, a couple of bad vibes from the people and scenery, and an eccentric fella with a severe lack of vitamin D stop him? While the woman he loves is back home being amazingly competent and having so much faith in him and that heāll do a good job? Nah. This man be walking straight into the beastās lair with āIām a full blown solicitor! Mina is proud of me! Iām doing this!ā playing on loop inside his little head, and itās good too, because it shows that the experience of twenty somethings entering the job market has not changed since the late nineteenth century.
Dracula feels possessive of Jonathan. He thinks Jonathan literally belongs to him. There is subtext of sexual assault in this entry, and I donāt want to spoil things ahead, but... Yeah.
To a monster like Dracula, that comes under the name of ālove.ā He ālovesā Jonathan, in the exact same way he once ālovedā the three women (thatās why I believe them to all be his exes, though I see the point of people who say two of them are his daughters with the third one.) Heās an abusive gaslighter, who has now managed to convince Jonathan that he, Dracula, is Jonathanās only point of safety and protection in the castle. To call his possessive desire of Jonathan āloveā is yet another way in which he corrupts and distorts everything around him. The three women clearly are done with his bulshit, but āI too can love, as you know from the pastā may imply that perhaps he did convince them once that his twisted feelings for them were love?
He certainly convinced Hollywood, if you look at the amount of adaptations that paint him as a tragic romantic hero.
One thing we come to learn about Dracula is that the locals are onto him, and the three vampire ladies are onto him. Heās after new prey, and Jonathan filled the bill exactly. Thereās been so much meta about Jonathan being the first intellectually stimulating prey heās had in centuries. And thereās Hawkinsā letter. Jonathan is obedient, and Dracula is having fun playing around with his boundaries. As others have said, he at first did not seem to care much if Jonathan got eaten by the three vampire ladies. But now heās angry. Now, this man belongs to him. And because he is an abuser, he calls that love.
jonathan rebelling more openly than he has before, disobeying an explicit command (good for him), and regretting it (fuck)
the horrible image of dracula as jonathan's protector
the first "voluptuous" of many
the vampire women who dracula explicitly commands/controls like he did the wolves, bringing them food and allowing them to eat (not that I want them to have free access to victims, just, y'know, it implies a certain power dynamic early on)
jonathan's realisation, at last, that he's dealing with vampires.
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"...not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle"
And here we have Dracula paralleling Bluebeard once more. Why has he been forbidding entrance to certain rooms since early May? What sort of morbid thing is he hiding that must not be found?
Both Arabian Nights -which Jonathan has referenced- and Bluebeard feature a powerful noble with a brand new bride he intends to kill, like his previous ones. The new bride in both stories delays her fate by being diplomatic and/or playing along for survival.
Jonathan Harker is an Englishman from Exeter. As such he speaks (Devon-accented) English.
He has mentioned a couple of times now that he also speaks German, but not very well. He calls it a "smattering" but it's enough to get him through Hungary, which is famously diglossic. He does not speak Hungarian. When he gets into Romania the language barrier becomes more profound because not only does he not understand any Romanian, the locals don't have a whole lot of German either. When he talks to the innkeeper's wife they're both using a common language neither speaks well.
You've all heard me go on about this but I am going to say it again: I'm obsessed with the fact that in earlier drafts when the Count was located in Austria he specifically requested a solicitor who did not speak German. He's not supposed to be able to communicate with the locals. He's supposed to be wholly dependent on Dracula, who as we've seen in the finished version is arranging all his travel and writing him little letters and such to help him navigate his way there.
[Aside: is Dracula speaking German to the coachman? Because Jonathan is able to understand their conversation, which he wouldn't if it were in Romanian. It makes sense because the coachman refers to him as the English Herr. But if so Dracula must be doing so specifically for Jonathan's benefit - otherwise he would be using his own language.]
But! At some point Jonathan acquired a polyglot dictionary! This is another great character moment. Like his research at the British Museum, it means he is aware of his deficiencies (not speaking the local language) and taken steps to correct them. Dracula wants him isolated, but Jonathan wants to know things and talk to people. He asked questions of the waiters in Budapest. He asked questions of the innkepers in Bistritz (who suddenly forgot how to speak German). He can't ask questions of the townsfolk or other passengers on the coach because he doesn't speak their language, but he's trying to understand anyway by means of the resources he does have - the polyglot dictionary. Communication is key and he's trying to make it happen.
A second aside: people have pointed out that he misspells (and mistranslates) ƶrdƶg. Other people have pointed out that he's remarkably good at looking up words in a language he doesn't speak just on sound. (To harken means to listen and pay attention - his name means Listener, so maybe he's just preternaturally good at that). But he's writing his diary in shorthand, which may not have an obvious way of rendering the diacritics (he leaves them off of mÄmÄligÄ as well) so that's an extra layer of translation. And he's relying on his little dictionary, but that dictionary may not be reliable, in the same way that despite all his research he was not able to find Castle Dracula on any map. (Maybe it's like Rokovoko - too real for maps).
We laugh a lot at "I must ask the Count about these superstitions," but here's the thing: the Count speaks English. No one else on this trip is able to communicate with Jonathan in his own language (or in theirs!) even if they wanted to (which they often don't, since vampires are Scary). And this is by design!
And Dracula speaks excellent English. Better than Jonathan's German. And he wants to get better at it (which is totally reasonable). But there's this huge linguistic power imbalance here, in spite of which Jonathan still manages to arrive better prepared and better informed than he is supposed to.
By the time Dracula arrives in England, will he be speaking with a Devon accent?
