Count Dracula (Bram Stoker)

''Note: This article is primarily for the original Dracula from the Bram Stoker novel. Any edits involving other media adaptations will not be accepted.''

"Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."

- Count Dracula referring to wolves

Count Dracula (his first name is never given in the original novel) is the primary antagonist of the legendary novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Universally recognized as the archetype of the vampire, he is one of the most famous fictional characters and Horror icons of all time. Dracula is a centuries-old vampire, sorcerer and Transylvanian nobleman, who attempts to expand his realm in England but is thwarted and destroyed by the protagonists.

Appearance
Bram Stoker based his character upon the historical figure Prince Vlad III (also known as Vlad Tepes - "the Impaler"), and characters in-universe ponders that they might be linked, and are likely be one and the same. Contrary to the vampires of Eastern European folklore which are portrayed as repulsive, corpse-like creatures, Dracula exudes a veneer of aristocratic charm which masks his unfathomable evil. Being depicted as hideous and corrupting yet irresistible and seductive, he is widely regarded as a metaphor of vice, depravation and illicit sex.

Count Dracula's appearance is described thus:

''[Dracula's] face was a strong - a very strong - aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddines's showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.'' – Jonathan Harker's Journal, Dracula, Chapter 2

It must be noted that the most iconic portrayals of the Count depict him as a black-haired, clean-shaved, middle-aged man, in stark contrast with the old man sporting a mustache of the novel.

Characteristics
Dracula is described as an expert scholar with immense knowledge in many scientific fields, including Alchemy. After becoming a vampire, he became a master of sorcery and Necromancy. While his powers were lated regarded as standard abilities for a vampire, the novel notes that he is exceptionally powerful and gifted, even for a vampire. As such, what abilities are his and his alone, and what are common abilities for a vampire remain unclear. Some of his powers like the ability to turn into elemental dust in the moonlight would not appear in most adaptations.

He needs to be invited to enter in an inhabited area, but as long as he has this invitation he can appear there out of nowhere. He can also enter through cracks as small as keyholes and the interstice between a door and a wall. However, he cannot leave a room if a wild rose is put on the entrance, he cannot cross a barrier made of holy loafers or other sacred symbols, and he cannot cross running waters like rivers unless the tide is at its highest or lowest. Finally, he must rest on the soil of his place of "rebirth" on a regular basis to sustain his powers. Such characteristic he shares with other vampires.

Dracula is as strong as twenty men and as fast and spry as a great feline. He can see in complete darkness and crawl across walls like a lizard. He can alter his aspect and features at will, though he needs to drink blood to rejuvenize himself and be able to look like a young man. He is also able to change his size to an unknown extent. Dracula can shape-shift into almost any kind of feral beast and lower critter, like wolves, dogs, bats, rats and the like. He is also able to turn into mist and elemental dust in the moonlight. (The latter transformation being shared by his wives.) He is also able to control the weather to conjure storms, mist, wind and rain at will and to mesmerize people through eye contact or his mere presence. All feral beasts and critters around will obey his every command. Finally, he can control corpses and shares a psychic link with the vampires he sired. He can command them and gain access to their mind, but the process can be reversed.

Dracula, like all vampires in the novel, can be repelled by a religious symbol like a cross or by garlic. Sunlight does not harm him but he is notably weaker and unable to use his powers during the day. Should the sun rise when he assumes such aspect, he would not be able to change for the whole day. As such, the protagonists are able to hold their own in battle against him in daytime, while they admit that they would stand no chance by night. Vampires can be destroyed by being incinerated, by being immersed in running water, by being shot with a sanctified bullet, and finally by piercing their heart and beheading them. While the most common method to pierce their heart is by using a wooden stake, iron blades can also be used, in referrence to the myths where iron harms supernatural beings.

Dracula is noted for having been a noble and admirable man during his life-time, but is now a cruel, heartless and vicious predator. He is suave, refined and sophisticated, and is unfaillingly polite to people he interacts with, though such courtesy is mostly interested. He is very proud and haughty, considering the protagonists attempts futile, and reacts with scathing spite when thwarted. However, he is cautious and becomes increasingly wary of them following their progress.

He is noted for being immensely intelligent, with centuries of experience and immense culture. He can quickly adapt to new cultures and situations, and proves especially cunning during his skirmishes with the protagonists. He knows how to cover his tracks and to create false leads, as well as purposefully misguding his foes to escape them, and he learns from his mistakes. However, immortalilty somehow stunned his devellopment, hence Van Hellsing refering to his intelligence as "child-like". Indeed he will first rely on external help, before figuring that he can do better on his own, and he needs to experience a situation to fully grasp it.

It must be noted that many adaptation make the Count a more fleshed-out, three-dimensional character. Some make him an anti-hero who laments his curse and longs for respite, and some even give him a romance with Mina. In spite of the huge popularity of the latte, one must insist on the fact that in the novel, Mina utterly loathes the Count. While she wishes to save the soul of the great man he once was, she wants to see the vampire destroyed and is revolted by the prospect of becoming one of his vampire brides.

Background
Count Dracula claims to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun. He inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. In his youth, he studied the black arts at the academy of Scholomance in the Carpathian Mountains, overlooking the town of Sibiu (also known as Hermannstadt) and became proficient in alchemy and magic (Dracula Chapter 18 and Chapter 23). Later he took up a military profession, combating the Turks across the Danube. According to Abraham Van Helsing:

''He must indeed have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turks, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man: for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest'.'' – Mina Harker's Journal, 30 September, Dracula, Chapter 18.

Using the black arts, Dracula returned from death as a vampire and lived for several centuries in his decaying castle of the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass, with his three wives for company.

Story
In the 19th century, Dracula enacts a long contemplated plan for leaving his scarcely populated land where everyone knows and fear him, in favour of a populated and striving country. Whether he wants to expand his hunting grounds, breed a coven of vampires, or take over the world is not precised. Dracula choses to infiltrate London to begin his reign of terror. He purchases the Purfleet Domain and summons Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer.

Dracula at first charms Harker with his cordiality and historical knowledge and even rescues him from the clutches of his three bloodthirsty brides. In truth, however, Dracula wishes to keep Harker alive just long enough for his legal transaction to finish, to learn as much as possible about England and perfect his elocution, as a wealthy nobleman like him would not bear to be seen as another foreigner with a funny accent.

Dracula then leaves his castle and boards a Russian ship, the Demeter, taking along with him boxes of Transylvanian soil. During the voyage to Whitby, a coastal town in northern England, he sustains himself on the ship's crew members. Only the body of the captain is later found, tied up to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. Dracula leaves the ship in the form of a very large dog.

Soon the Count is menacing Harker's devoted fiancé, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray, and her vivacious friend, Lucy Westenra. There is also a notable link between Dracula and Renfield, a patient in an insane asylum compelled to consume insects, spiders, birds, and other creatures — in ascending order of size — in order to absorb their "life-force". Renfield acts as a kind of motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly. Dracula quickly gains Renfield's obedience and begins to visit Lucy's bed chamber on a nightly basis, draining her of blood while simultaneously infecting her with the curse of vampirism.

Not knowing the cause for Lucy's deterioration, her unfortunate suitor Dr. John Steward, the director of the Asylum where Renfield is kept, calls upon his former mentor the Dutch doctor Van Helsing. Van Helsing soon deduces her condition's supernatural origins, but does not speak out, knowing that none would believe him without proof. Despite an attempt at keeping the vampire at bay with garlic, Dracula attacks Lucy and her mother under the shape of a wolf. He later returns under the shape of a large bat and entices Lucy out of her chamber late at night, draining her blood and killing her.

It is later revealed that Lucy has become a vampire and starts preying upon children, who call her the "Bloody Maiden". Van Helsing leads Dr. Steward, the Texan Quincey Morris (another of Lucy's unfortunate suitors) and Lucy's fiancé Lord Arthur Godalming to enter Lucy's crypt, to reveal the truth and relieve her from the curse of undeath. They later join forces with Jonathan and Mina, who are now married, and swear to destry the Count.

They all gather every piece of information they own and start tracking down Dracula. However, Dracula enters the Asylum where Mina resides, invited by Renfield, and starts feeding on her. He trashes Stewart's study and destroys all information they wrote about him to keep them away, but fortunately they kept copies in a safe. Dracula later kills Renfield, who tried to prevent him from attacking Mina out of gratitude for her niceness, but the men manage to drive him away before he can turn Mina into a vampire. Alas, he infected him and they are now running against time.

The protagonists enter Dracula's residence at Carfax Abbey, destroying all the boxes of earth he stores there, while warding the Count's hordes of rats with attack dogs, thus depriving him of the possibility to refuel his powers there. Unfortunately, aware that they know this adress, Dracula hired many sollicitors to purchase three more houses in London, and dispersed the rest of his boxes in these locations.

Given that Jonathan know how many boxes Dracula owns, they realise that the Count escaped them. After a long investigation, they discover Dracula's other hideouts and take profit of the day to destroy all his remaining boxes, before waiting for him to try to destroy him while they can. As soon as Dracula enters the scene, Jonathan attacks him with his large kukri knife but he manages to flee, cursing them. Dracula later fetches his only remaining box and rents a boat to return to Transylvania, in order to lay low for a few decades and plan a second, best organized invasion of England.

At Mina's urging, Van Helsing hypnotises her to take profit of her connection with the Count and realises that he has boarded a ship. Lord Godalming learns of the ship's name and the group decides to get to Transylvania before him by land to ambush him. However, Dracula used his power over weather to make the trip unnaturally fast and faked the ship's destination to launch them on a false track. The group discover the truth and rushes there, but it is too late, Dracula is already en route to his castle.

Mina deduces that Dracula is travelling by boat on the river, and cannot reveal himself out of fear that the sailors would throw his box in the river and kill him. The men chase after the vampire, while Mina and Van Helsing preceed them to the castle. At night, Van Helsing puts Mina inside a circle of holy loafers to protect her from both Dracula's influence and her growing vampirism. The following night, they ward off Dracula's brides. In the morning, Van Helsing ventures in the castle, using a map drawn by Jonathan, and destroys the brides, before ruining Dracula's last resting place and forbidding him to enter his castle ever again.

Later, the men catch up with Dracula's gypsy bodyguards while Mina and Van Helsing ambushes them from behind. After a short but vicious battle under the last rays of the sun, during which Quincey gets mortally wounded, Jonathan and Quincey manage to break the box open. Just before the night would enable the Count to rise and terminate his foes, Quincey pierces his heart with his huge bowie knife while Jonathan beheads him with his Kukri. (Mina Harker's Journal, 6 November, Dracula Chapter 27) Quincey passes away with a smile, happy to notice than Mina is freed from Dracula's curse.

This omission of the proper rituals of destruction has led some to express doubts whether Dracula has really been finished off and believe that he shall rise again. However, Dracula crumbles into dust with an expression of blissful relief on his face, exactly like the other vampires that were "properly" staked, and Mina loses all the physical and mental stigma caused by vampirism, proving without any doubt that Dracula was truly dead and gone. In fact, the novel makes Dracula vulnerable to iron blades, in the same way as faes, while later adaptation would remove the weakness and leave the wooden stake as the only option.

Dracula the Un-Dead
In this novel (written by Bram Stoker's grandnephew Dacre Stoker and by historian Ian Holt and approved, despite numerous differences as follows official Stoker's novel) the figure of Dracula is seen in a new light; is described not as an evil monster and bloodthirsty, but taken from anti-hero, becomes a being with a heart and human feelings, a real crusader, not being totally devoted to the good (in fact come to kill him Bram Stoker himself guilty, in history, to have him discredited in his novel), however, is fighting for a noble cause; Also unlike the first novel, where the true identity of the vampire was not clarified in this novel Dracula it is finally recognized as the character that Bram Stoker was inspired to create it: Vlad the Impaler. In the novel Dracula sets himself the task to kill the evil Countess Elizabeth Bathory, which he has turned into a vampire, but that became too bad even by the standards of a vampire; the year in which the events take place in the first novel, Dracula arrived in England not to conquer and transform its inhabitants into vampires, but to stop the Countess Bathory, who was claiming victims under the pseudonym Jack the Ripper. Is not he also the murderess of Lucy Wenstenra, which actually was dying because of blood transfusions that Van Helsing had done on her, and in fact has turned her into a vampire to save her life. We find out that it was also the lover of Mina Harker, and that the son of this (the young Quincey Harker) is the son of Jonathan Harker, but Dracula himself. It also is not as dead as we thought at the end of the novel by Stoker although, seriously wounded by Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris, has received the coup de grace by Elizabeth Bathory, and in the guise of a Romanian actor named Basarab, continues to give hunting evil Countess, with stops in the cities in which she goes to do his evil deeds. He tightens even alliance with dr. And Dr. Jack Seward. Van Helsing, to help him eliminate the Countess Bathory. At the end of the novel, Dracula fights valiantly against Elizabeth Bathory managing to kill her, not before he had turned his beloved Mina Harker in a vampire, and then, after trying in vain to convince Quincey that his real father is Harker, but he, He dies after exposure to sunlight.

The Diaries of the Family Dracul
In this trilogy of books (written by Jean Kalogridis and that form remake with many extensions and depth of details and characters that Stoker in his book, he had left in the dark), the story and characterization of Dracula remain almost the same the historical novel. However, it is told with great clarity his past: in this version is none other than Dracula Vlad the Impaler, who, driven by ambition and thirst for power, he decided to sell his soul to the Dark Lord (powerful entities in charge of all vampires in the world) in exchange for immortality. The pact provides that Vlad deliver the Dark Lord's soul a son belonging to every generation of his future offspring forcing them to sipulare a blood pact that will bind them to him. For this reason, the great-grandson Arkady pursued Dracula and his son Abraham (adopted by the family Van Helsing to hide it to Vlad), turning first into a vampire and hunting the second to repeat the ritual of the covenant and increase their own power after having killed half brother Stefan, his son Jan and having crazed wife Gerda. He also killed the mother and brother of Arkady's father to punish them for trying an escape and evade the blood pact. In addition to this, Dracula turns into a vampire also Zsuzsanna Tsepesh, sister Arkady crippled from birth, transforming it into a sensual vampire and making her his bride, and makes vampire and his second partner also their servant girl Dunya. Finally, to counter that Van Helsing, on the instructions of the wise Arminius (which is actually the "good side" of the Dark Lord) is decimating the vampires he "created", he proposes an alliance to ruthless Dracula "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory, his distant relative, but this agreement will change soon in rivalry, as the beautiful and cruel vampire will prove far more ambitious and powerful than himself.

Despite his ruthlessness, Dracula in this version shows a side slightly more "human", feeling a tinge of regret in turning into vampires his descendants or cause death. It also states very in love with Zsuzsanna and Dunya, but despite this not save for their abuse, mistreatment and tyrannical and authoritarian behavior. In fact it seems that the only person that Dracula, in this series of novels, truly loved both Ana, the wife who, as legend has it, he committed suicide by jumping into the river Arges to evade capture by the Turks.

Anno Dracula series
In Anno Dracula, award-winning work of the English writer Kim Newman and first of a successful series of novels, it is set up a ucronia that, among many historical references, literary and film, partially reworks the story of Bram Stoker. It describes a world in which Dracula (here officially recognized as Vlad the Impaler) defeated Van Helsing and his friends, and after he married Queen Victoria, reigns supreme on a UK where men and vampires are forced to live with. A Dracula opposes the Diogenes Club (imaginary circle created by Arthur Conan Doyle), headed by Mycroft Holmes (brother of the famous Sherlock Holmes) and represented by the secret agent Charles Beauregard flanked by centuries-old and powerful vampire Genevieve Dieudonne.

In the novel The Bloody Baron, followed by Anno Dracula, the death of his wife Dracula he is forced to flee from England to take refuge in Germany, and to become, twenty years after the outstanding personalities for excellence during the First World War.

Later, in 1959, Dracula will move to Rome, where he became the betrothed Princess Asa Vajda of Moldova (antagonist of the film Black Sunday, Mario Bava). The marriage, however, not be held ever since Dracula is killed by journalist vampire Kate Reed. This event is narrated in the novel Dracula Cha cha cha.

Also in this version the characterization of Dracula There are no significant changes, remaining the same individual cruel and hungry potere.Tuttavia, despite being in effect the main antagonist of the series, the pivot around which the whole story, actually Dracula It appears very little in the three novels: the first is present in numerous flashbacks dk Jack Seward, who reconstructs the story that brought Dracula to his rise to power, and it appears for the first time in the last chapter of the book in which, after a confrontation with Genevieve and Beauregard, was overthrown and driven out of England after the death of Queen Victoria. In the second book he is mentioned several times, but appears in person only in a couple of occasions, and it third hand, despite all the preparations of her marriage to Asa, will never appear, if not after being killed and beheaded.