History YMMV / DRACULA

** Relatedly, while we never see Mina's reaction specifically to Jonathan being attacked by the Weird Sisters, she's nothing but mournful that her husband had to go through his ordeal at Dracula's Castle and supportive of his attempts to recover from it. She never blames him for cheating her, seeming to recognize that he had no control over the matter, and this is well before her own encounters with Dracula. Say what you will about the gender politics of the novel, but men and women are treated equally in the lack of victim-blaming.

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) so the audience can relate better when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and needs be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast. Not helping is that Arthur provides ''very'' little in the way of documents that make up the novel (only a few letters and telegraphs), about as much as Morris, but as mentioned, Morris has "[[GenreRefugee American cowboy in a Gothic Horror story]]" going for him. Even during the final expedition to kill Dracula, he doesn't get to avenge his fiancee himself and his primary means of supporting it is through his money and connections.

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) so the audience can relate better when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and needs be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast. Not helping is that Arthur provides ''very'' little in the way of documents that make up the novel (only a few letters and telegraphs), about as much as Morris, but as mentioned, Morris has "[[GenreRefugee American cowboy in a Gothic Horror story]]" going for him.
Even during the final expedition to kill Dracula, he doesn't get to avenge his fiancee himself and his primary means of supporting it is through his money and connections.

** To many familiar with modern vampire works, where vampirism, blood drinking, and vampires themselves are blatant (sometimes ''too'' blatant) metaphors for sex and sexuality, it can be surprising to find that the actual text of the Ur-Example vampire novel sports very little in the way of sexual subtext, and when discussed actually outright dismisses the idea. At her funeral Arthur suggests to Van Helsing that donating blood to Lucy symbolically married them in some way, and Van Helsing finds the suggestion literally laughable, breaking down into hysterics as soon as he's out of Arthur's earshot (though much of his mirth comes from, if the idea is carried to its logical conclusion, it means Lucy is a polyandrist and Van Helsing himself a bigamist). If they're metaphors for sex at all, Dracula and the other vampires are metaphors for ''rape'', and the text treats vampirism more like the spread of an insidious and fatal disease than anything to do with sexuality. The closest thing to actual textual evidence for a sexual interpretation is vampire Lucy, [[CameBackWrong reawakened as a hideous, distorted parody of the sweet, innocent girl she used to be]], repeatedly described as having a kind of animalistic sexuality (emphasis on "animal," with her growling over a child like a dog over a bone), something which all the men react to in horror. Also in the "Weird Sisters" attacking Jonathan, mesmerizing him so that he's unwilling to resist them, ''willing'' to let them "[[DeadlyEuphemism kiss]]" him. Later generations sneering at Victorian repression ran with these scenes to equate vampirism with sexual liberation while leaving the children Lucy and the Sisters were preying on in the same scene conveniently out of shot. For the same reason, many will claim ''Dracula'' started the trend of vampire as sex metaphor, when that honor is more accurately placed on adaptations, derivative works, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs adaptations incorporating elements from derivative works]].

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) so the audience can relate better when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and needs be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast. Even during the final expedition to kill Dracula, he doesn't get to avenge his fiancee himself and his primary means of supporting it is through his money and connections. Not helping is that Arthur provides ''very'' little in the way of documents that make up the novel (only a few letters and telegraphs), about as much as Morris, but as mentioned, Morris has "[[GenreRefugee American cowboy in a Gothic Horror story]]" going for him.

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) so the audience can relate better when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and needs be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast. Even during the final expedition to kill Dracula, he doesn't get to avenge his fiancee himself and his primary means of supporting it is through his money and connections.

** To many familiar with modern vampire works, where vampirism, blood drinking, and vampires themselves are blatant (sometimes ''too'' blatant) metaphors for sex and sexuality, it can be surprising to find that the actual text of the Ur-Example vampire novel sports very little in the way of sexual subtext, and when discussed actually outright dismisses the idea. At her funeral Arthur suggests to Van Helsing that donating blood to Lucy symbolically married them in some way, and Van Helsing finds the suggestion literally laughable, breaking down into hysterics as soon as he's out of Arthur's earshot (though much of his mirth comes from, if the idea is carried to its logical conclusion, it means Lucy is a polyandrist and Van Helsing himself a bigamist). If they're metaphors for sex at all, Dracula and the other vampires are metaphors for ''rape'', and the text treats vampirism more like the spread of an insidious and fatal disease than anything to do with sexuality. The closest thing to actual textual evidence for this interpretation is vampire Lucy, [[CameBackWrong reawakened as a hideous, distorted parody of the sweet, innocent girl she used to be]], is repeatedly described as having a kind of animalistic sexuality (emphasis on "animal," with her growling over a child like a dog over a bone), something which all the men react to in horror. Also in the "Weird Sisters" attacking Jonathan, mesmerizing him so that he's unwilling to resist them, ''willing'' to let them "[[DeadlyEuphemism kiss]]" him. Later generations sneering at Victorian repression ran with these scenes to equate vampirism with sexual liberation while leaving the children Lucy and the Sisters were preying on in the same scene conveniently out of shot. For the same reason, many will claim ''Dracula'' started the trend of vampire as sex metaphor, when that honor is more accurately placed on adaptations, derivative works, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs adaptations incorporating elements from derivative works]].

** To many familiar with modern vampire works, where vampirism, blood drinking, and vampires themselves are blatant (sometimes ''too'' blatant) metaphors for sex and sexuality, it can be surprising to find that the actual text of the Ur-Example vampire novel sports very little in the way of sexual subtext, and when discussed actually outright dismisses the idea. Although some jokes are made about how Lucy's suitors sharing blood with her makes her a polyandrist, at her funeral Arthur suggests to Van Helsing that donating blood to Lucy symbolically married them in some way, and Van Helsing finds the suggestion literally laughable, breaking down into hysterics as soon as he's out of Arthur's earshot. If they're metaphors for sex at all, Dracula and the other vampires are metaphors for ''rape'', and the text treats vampirism more like the spread of an insidious and fatal disease than anything to do with sexuality. The closest thing to actual textual evidence for this interpretation is vampire Lucy, [[CameBackWrong reawakened as a hideous, distorted parody of the sweet, innocent girl she used to be]], is repeatedly described as having a kind of animalistic sexuality, something which all the men react to in horror. Later generations sneering at Victorian repression ran with this scene to equate vampirism with sexual liberation while leaving the child she was preying on in the same scene conveniently out of shot. For the same reason, many will claim ''Dracula'' started the trend of vampire as sex metaphor, when that honor is more accurately placed on adaptations, derivative works, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs adaptations incorporating elements from derivative works]].

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) so the audience can relate better when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and has to have be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast.

** How much of Jonathan's obliviousness and SkewedPriorities at the start of the novel is legit, and how much is him essentially going into survival mode in a ''very bad'' situation he can't easily get out of? Memes aside, his journals indicate that he has a sense something really isn't right very early, and he does hang onto the rosary the innkeeper's wife gives him. He says it's because she was so genuinely concerned and kind and he didn't want to discard her gift, but it could also indicate that deep down, he's not sure it wouldn't help to have a holy symbol on him. Later, when he realizes Dracula has no reflection, and the Count shatters his mirror, Jonathan's first reaction is to comment that it's annoying because now he can't shave properly... but the rest of that entry describes him realizing he's trapped in the castle, and he is clearly ''freaking the hell out''. It's very possible Jonathan was honing in on irrelevant or silly details, like being able to shave or the food he's enjoying, and trying to ignore the increasingly-obvious bloodsucking elephant in the room, because his only other option was to panic and/or go insane. At least once, Jonathan writes in his journal that he feels like he's losing his mind, and that he's journaling for much the same reason as [[Literature/TheMartian Mark Watney]]: to try and keep his head in a stressful, life-or-death situation, and have an outlet to talk himself through plans for survival.

** While Light is a weakness to Dracula in the original book, it wasn't the outright lethal weakness it became in adaptations like ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}''. It just [[WeakenedByTheLight weakened his powers]] and [[ShapeshifterModeLock robbed him of his shape shifting abilities]] while exposed to it.

** To many familiar with modern vampire works, where vampirism, blood drinking, and vampires themselves are blatant (sometimes ''too'' blatant) metaphors for sex and sexuality, it can be surprising to find that the actual text of the Ur-Example vampire novel supports very little in the way of sexual subtext, and actually outright dismisses the idea. At Lucy's funeral, Arthur suggests to Van Helsing that donating blood to Lucy symbolically married them in some way, and Van Helsing finds the suggestion literally laughable, breaking down into hysterics as soon as he's out of Arthur's earshot. If they're metaphors for sex at all, Dracula and the other vampires are metaphors for ''rape'', and the text treats vampirism more like the spread of an insidious and fatal disease than anything to do with sexuality. And yet many will claim ''Dracula'' started the trend of vampire as sex metaphor, when that honor is more accurately placed on adaptations, derivative works, and adaptations incorporating elements from derivative works.

* VanillaProtagonist: Sir Arthur Holmwood, despite being the one Lucy ultimately chooses to marry, is generally seen as the least interesting of her three love interests. He doesn't have Quincy Morris's rough American charms or Dr. Seward's dark, moody intellectual expertise. He's just a wealthy British nobleman and NiceGuy. While this makes him ''slightly'' more of an everyman (wealth and status aside) when his beloved perishes, turns into a vampire child-predator, and has to have be impaled to prevent her harming more people and children (a duty that's given to him), and thus serves something of a narrative function, poor Arthur is still given the least to distinguish him from the rest of the main cast.