History YMMV / DRACULA

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Van Helsing, a Dutch doctor, often breaks out in GratuitousGerman. Was Stoker getting the Dutch and German languages mixed up? Probably yes, but German ''was'' the major language of Western science in the 19th century, particularly when it came to medicine, as well as being a lingua franca in much of Europe, so it's fairly likely that Van Helsing would have regularly spoken German.

** Considering "Dracula" is now practically synonymous with "vampire", the big revelation about the Count isn't nearly as shocking as it once was. Indeed the surprising thing for readers is the UnbuiltTrope about how banal he comes off as being in Jonathan's first meeting with him, which gives readers the impression that this is a guy you can hang out with, at least once.

** The Book/The Adaptations[[labelnote:Explanation]]With many now reading the actual book for the first time, they are also noticing the many instances of changes made from the book to the various adptations it's had over the years, especially the AdaptationalJerkass treatment Jonathan gets in nearly every adaptation, not to mention the AdaptationalConsent between Mina and Dracula. Most fans find these changes in poor taste and take great joy in dunking on them by comparing them to the ValuesResonance of the original book.[[/labelnote]]

* MisaimedFandom: Count Dracula is clearly meant to be an ancient, evil, crazy walking corpse creature. His fashion sense and tendency to be played by sexy European actors made him beloved, and nearly single-handedly launched the VampiresAreSexGods trope. If the sexual overtones weren't intentional, it would be almost literally the sole example of Victorian horror literature that didn't. The man was never taken for anything but human, described as a consummate noble (also a literal noble, being landed gentry) with a commanding presence, and his most frequently-used power made him more personally compelling. Much of the book was written through the perspective of a woman partially under his spell, and it was made pretty explicit that he was very seductive despite not being traditionally attractive.
** Many people, including WebComic/HarkAVagrant (see ValuesDissonance), interprets Lucy's death as some sort of karmic death because she was so promiscuous with her three suitors. While this complaint is valid in some ''adaptations'' of the book, it does not work as a critique of the original novel. Lucy in the book was a morally pure character whose death is treated as a tragedy. She does have multiple suitors, but this was more because of her kindness and innocence than any perceived promiscuity; any behaviour of that sort doesn't happen until she is already turned by Dracula. Not to mention that she was unmarried, and thus most likely a virgin, when she died, which Mina Harker née Murray most decidedly was not.

* RealismInducedHorror: While the main threat of the novel is obviously the vampire, a supernatural being, many modern readers have found that the opening chapters become allegorical for an abusive relationship. Dracula acts kind and courteous towards Jonathan, but does everything to control him, ranging from limiting his movement, preventing him from leaving, and going through his belongings and throwing them away when they're not to his liking. While Jonathan initially makes excuses for him, once he actually realizes that something is wrong and starts fighting back, the Count becomes more directly hostile and even violent. Like many people in abusive relationships, Jonathan can't leave, as he's stuck in a situation where his abuser is his only source of safety, and once he finally gets to safety, he is clearly deeply traumatized and suffers symptoms of PTSD. While in London, a single glimpse of his abuser in a place where he thought he was safe and away from him spirals him into a panic attack.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Van Helsing, a Dutch doctor, often breaks out in GratuitousGerman. Was Stoker getting the Dutch and German languages mixed up? Actually, German was the major language of Western science in the 19th century, particularly when it came to medicine, as well as being a lingua franca in much of Europe, so it's fairly likely that Van Helsing would have regularly spoken German.

*** A truly cynical reading of the character would ask just how 'unintentional' Mrs Westenra's actions actually are. A woman in early middle age (Lucy herself is only nineteen) with some kind of imminently fatal medical condition (that she tells everyone but her daughter about) who time and again puts her daughter squarely in the path of Dracula's hunger. She's the one who just so happens to remove Lucy to Whitby in time for Dracula's arrival. She's the one who sabotages Van Helsing's early efforts to shield Lucy from Dracula. She's the one who pulls the garlic talisman from Lucy's neck just as the wolf breaks the window of Lucy's room, leaving Lucy defenceless as 'someone' has drugged the wine that their maids are known to purloin glasses of. Seward himself notes how blithely unconcerned Mrs Westenra is by her daughter's near-death condition. It's almost as though Renfield isn't the only person willing to work towards Dracula's aims in return for immortality...

** Anyone (in film, TV or anywhere) doing their impression of Dracula will adopt an outrageous, over-the-top accent that might be confused for Romanian. In the novel, Dracula's English is so good that Jonathan Harker can barely detect an accent at all. What those imitators are doing is an impression of parodies of Bela Lugosi's (Hungarian) accent from the film version. Though strangely enough in {{WesternAnimation/Buzz Lightyear of Star Command}}, the Dracula homage character NOS4A2 actually employs a {{truer to the text}} English accent

** Any time the name 'Van Helsing' is mentioned in any form of media, it either depicts the character himself as a hardcore VampireHunter or gives the audience the heads up that the character in question is a HunterOfMonsters. In the original book Van Helsing is nothing of the sort; he has a wide range of accomplishments and interests, of which a knowledge of Balkan folklore is only one. Seward initially turns to him because he's an expert in rare diseases, so it takes him a fair while to realise that Lucy's condition is caused by a vampire, at first trying to cure her through scientific means before turning to more traditional methods of protection, and in the end his efforts to save her life are all in vain. Van Helsing is able to lead the group to the conclusion of vampires not because he is an vampire expert with experience slaying them but because he is an open-minded scholar willing to seriously consider folklore, myth, and ridiculous-sounding claims. Most of his hypotheses about vampires derive from comparing descriptions in various old stories and texts to his experience with Lucy and the observations Jonathan made in his journal, and he constantly needs to do further research on how to understand and defeat Dracula and the vampires created by him, basically adapting as he goes along and hoping desperately that his ideas work rather than knowing everything right from the start.

** Van Helsing, Seward, Holmwood and Morris are often vilified for their attitude towards, and dispatching of, the undead Lucy. Vampire Lucy is regularly interpreted as having broken free from the constraints of Victorian society to become a more liberated and sexual being; consequentially it's argued that she's being cruelly repressed by her three love interests and Van Helsing, who seek to forcibly restore her purity and innocence and viciously punish her for being 'wanton' and 'voluptuous'. However, people who make this argument seem to forget that when the heroes track her down [[EatsBabies she's already attacked and fed on several very young children]] (which would have led to their own infections, deaths and transformation into vampires if she'd been allowed to continue unchecked), growls over her latest victim like a dog over a bone, throws the child ''hard'' to the ground when she spots a better meal, and would have fed on Arthur if Van Helsing hadn't warded her off. The disgust that the heroes feel for her is more than justified - because it isn't the real Lucy, it's a monster who looks like her. Moreover, her death isn't framed as a punishment, but as a MercyKill to set her spirit free from the vampire curse.

** Van Helsing tends to be portrayed as this in re-tellings from Dracula's point of view, where he's seen as radical and clueless. He particularly gets flak for the transfusions that, admittedly, ''could'' have killed Lucy in real life -- leading to said re-tellings claiming that Dracula turned Lucy in order to save her life -- but at the time the book was set/written, neither he, Stoker nor even the most educated of the book's readers would have known that (blood groups and the rhesus factor were only discovered in the following century, and blood transfusion was more or less luck of the draw for doctors at the time. It was cutting edge and exciting at the time of the book's publishing, which is why it appears). Also, while unlikely, it's not impossible that the suitors all had Lucy's blood type, or more likely, that Lucy was a universal receiver; at any rate, in the story the transfusions work, and Lucy only gets worse and dies because Dracula persists in feeding on her.

** Jonathan just took the bar exam.[[note]]Readers who have taken the bar (or a similarly grueling professional exam) have defended his early actions by saying that nobody who recently passed the bar would be in a mental condition to think about anything ''but'' real estate law, no matter how fearful and outlandish everything else is.[[/note]]

*** Jonathan and spices[[labelnote:Explanation]]In the book, Jonathan remarks on the spicyness of the aforementioned paprika hendl. Some readers made fun of him for finding paprika spicy, which in turn led to others explaining that paprika hendl is actually a rather spicy dish. This ignited a huge conversation and several contradictory statements about Jonathan's tolerance for spices, with varying claims that paprika hendl was not made spicy until sometimes during the 1900s, that paprika hendl is actually a local name for a different and quite spicy dish entirely, that Jonathan only finds it spicy because he's british, et cetera. Consensus seems to be that regardless of the actual spicyness of the dish, the fact that Jonathan still went back for another serving has earned him some amount of respect[[/labelnote]]

** Related, Dracula wasn't actually killed via stake to the heart - it was an iron bowie knife to the heart instead. The stake trope was one way to do it, and is used on Lucy after she's turned into a vampire, it's not how Dracula himself is killed. Some speculate that Stoker intentionally had the characters use the wrong tool for the job so that he could [[WhatCouldHaveBeen write a sequel some day]]. (It's worth noting that the vampire was already being beheaded by Jonathan by the time Quincey stabbed him in the heart anyway, so the impaling was presumably more of an added precaution than a killing blow. And the fact that Dracula dissolves instantly into dust pretty much proves that he's gone for good.)

* HardToAdaptWork: While there are ''many'' adaptations and many of them are perfectly good works, the book doesn't have that many outright scares. Instead, it has a feeling of slow-building dread that the adaptations lack, since the book is a ScrapbookStory made up of the letters, journals, and records of characters who, for the first half of the book, ''have no idea what's going on''. Dracula is a complete OutsideContextProblem for them, and only Van Helsing has even the foggiest notion of what to ''do'' about vampires once he's aware one is in England. Even for a modern reader who knows exactly who Dracula is and what he's up to, it's still a very unsettling read because you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop and want to warn the characters somehow, but can only read on as they slowly put the pieces together themselves. The format of the book allows Stoker to build a great deal of atmosphere and ambiance, and give the reader insights into almost all the major characters, and the plot is a spooky slow-burn as you watch all these characters you like gradually realize the true nature of what they're up against. It's one of the book's greatest strengths, and it unfortunately can't really be adapated to any other medium. The adaptations have to take a different tactic entirely, either reworking the plot or going at it from a different angle (i.e., playing the situation for DramaticIrony, showing it from Dracula's point of view, etc.).

* AmericansHateTingle: In the first set of years after this novel's publication, it was heavily despised by Romanians as being a xenophobic "story made up by a foreigner to titillate other foreigners" which is not wrong since the novel's plot is largely about an evil Eastern European count coming to steal the pure and virtuous Anglo-Saxon women beloved of many Invasion Literature tropes. It is also disliked by others for more or less immortalizing and scapegoating UsefulNotes/VladTheImpaler as a monster, and making the name of the Christian "Order of the Dragon" (which is what Dracula is supposed to mean) into a demonic being of low-grade pulp fiction. Romanian nationalism in the 19th Century also lionized and gave Dracula a HistoricalHeroUpgrade around the era when this book was published[[note]]Which was also a recent phenomenon. Since, the oral tradition among the peasants recorded by Archbishops in the seventeenth century was more or less negative[[/note]], and the novel, to Romanians, seems like someone making a cheap propaganda about their IconOfRebellion in the same period they were struggling against the Ottoman Turks and the Russian Empire. Granted, even though Romanians' loathing for Creator/BramStoker's Dracula has ameliorated and they have even been willing to capitalize on the fictional Count Dracula's association with the country by selling vampire related souvenirs, it is still not wise to talk about Dracula at length.

** Van Helsing, Seward, Holmwood and Morris are often vilified for their attitude towards, and dispatching of, the undead Lucy. Vampire Lucy is regularly interpreted as having broken free from the constraints of Victorian society to become a more liberated and sexual being; consequentially it's argued that she's being cruelly repressed by her three love interests and Van Helsing, who seek to forcibly restore her purity and innocence and viciously punish her for being 'wanton' and 'voluptuous'. However, people who make this argument seem to forget that when the heroes track her down [[EatsBabies she's already attacked and fed on several very young children]] (which would have led to their own infections, deaths and transformation into vampires if she'd been allowed to continue unchecked), growls over her latest victim like a dog over a bone, throws the child ''hard'' to the ground when she spots a better meal, and would have fed on Arthur if Van Helsing hadn't warded her off. The disgust that the heroes feel for her is more than justified. Moreover, her death isn't framed as a punishment, but as a MercyKill to set her spirit free from the vampire curse.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: 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.

** Dr. Seward gets a lot of flak for his treatment of [[TheMentallyDisturbed Renfield]], due to [[ValuesDissonance dissonance between Victorian and modern standards]] of mental health care. Seward is more interested in observing Renfield's madness than helping him recover, and encourages his behavior for better observation (for example, letting him escape from the asylum to see what he does). For this, some modern readers label him as a bad psychiatrist and a potential sadistic MadScientist. While Seward does commit malpractice by modern standards, he doesn't let curiosity compromise his morals. He regrets pushing Renfield too far and is disturbed to know that satisfying his curiosity would come at the cost of Renfield's insanity, and when Renfield requests a kitten to eat, he refuses.

** Van Helsing is incredibly touchy-feely with Seward, who worships him. At times they give off a borderline LoverBeloved vibe.

* EvilIsSexy: The three vampire women of Dracula's castle.

* LesYay:
** Mina sure likes describing how pretty Lucy is. They even share a kiss in ''Film/BramStokersDracula''. The TV series outright makes Lucy a lesbian.
** Mina also notices Dracula in London because they were both admiring the same pretty girl.
* LoveToHate: Dracula is this, whenever he's not receiving the DracoInLeatherPants treatment.

* {{Narm}}:
** There is the moment when Dracula attacks Mina. This scene reads like {{attempted rape}} but is brought down by three factors: 1) that Harker is unconscious in the corner with a red face and the description of him sounds as if he's drunk; 2) when the men break the door down Van Helsing goes flying across the floor; and 3) Dr Seward completely kills the moment when he likens the scene in his narration to "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink." Way to kill the mood, Seward.
* NauseaFuel: [[spoiler: Renfield's attempt at aping vampirism.]]

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: It can be easy to assume SadlyMythtaken after ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'' and other such vampire-themed works gave us a different example of what a vampire is.

** Lucy's ''gums'' turn pale from Dracula's blood-sucking. [[VomitIndiscretionShot Erk!]]

** Likewise him never biting Lucy's mother and changing her into a vampire as well. Though it is stated that Mrs Westenra died of heart failure when the wolf crashed through the window to attack Lucy. Presumably she would have been dead by the time Lucy was a vampire, making it impossible to turn her. Than again, considering that Dracula's power essentially amounts to necromancy, it's likely he could've still made her into a vampire.

** Even Van Helsing, though maybe the second most frequently adapted character besides Dracula, falls prey -- his character as "badass monster hunter with a possibly-fanatical hatred for the undead" is hugely played up, while the fact of his wife being in an asylum (and therefore unable to raise a biological family) and his subsequent almost-adoption of a group of terrified young people into a family that he protects goes unexploited.

** Mina, to the fullest extent. Taken up to eleven in ''Film/CountDracula1977'', where she's Lucy's sister.

** Any time the name 'Van Helsing' is mentioned in any form of media, it either depicts the character himself as a hardcore VampireHunter or gives the audience the heads up that the character in question is a HunterOfMonsters. In the original book Van Helsing is nothing of the sort; he has a wide range of accomplishments and interests, of which a knowledge of Balkan folklore is only one. Seward initially turns to him because he's an expert in rare diseases and it takes him a fair while to realise that Lucy's condition is caused by a vampire, at first trying to cure her through scientific means before turning to more traditional methods of protection. In the end his efforts to save her life are in vain, and he constantly needs to do further research on how to understand and defeat Dracula and the vampires created by him, basically adapting as he goes along and hoping desperately that his ideas work rather than knowing everything right from the start. Van Helsing is able to lead the group to the conclusion of vampires not because he is an vampire expert with experience slaying them but because he is an open-minded scholar willing to seriously consider folklore, myth, and ridiculous-sounding claims; most of his hypotheses about vampires derive from comparing descriptions in various old stories and texts to his experience with Lucy and the observations Jonathan made in his journal.

* AdaptationDisplacement: Arguably why Jonathan Harker had a bad reputation for ''years'' after the book's release: Up until Dracula Daily kicked off, most people only knew if his character from the film adaptations (which frequently portray him in a negative light) instead of the original source material, where he is a much more sympathetic and caring person.

** There is also the scene of Dracula climbing down a wall upside down. This is terrifying until you realize what gravity would do to Dracula's clothing and cape.
** The fact that Lucy's suitors are so repulsed by her vampire alter ego's sexuality can seem hilarious to modern readers, thanks to the widespread influence of AllMenArePerverts. Notably in ''Film/BramStokersDracula'', Lucy's seduction actually works (although Van Helsing intervenes).

** Any time the name 'Van Helsing' is mentioned in any form of media, it either depicts the character himself as a hardcore VampireHunter or gives the audience the heads up that the character in question is a HunterOfMonsters. In the original book Van Helsing is nothing of the sort; he has a wide range of accomplishments and interests, of which a knowledge of Balkan folklore is only one. Seward initially turns to him because he's an expert in rare diseases and it takes him a fair while to realise that Lucy's condition is caused by a vampire, at first trying to cure her through scientific means before turning to more traditional methods of protection. In the end his efforts to save her life are in vain, and he constantly needs to do further research on how to understand and defeat Dracula and the vampires created by him, basically adapting as he goes along and hoping desperately that his ideas work rather than knowing everything right from the start.

** Nearly every adaptation turns Lucy into a sexually promiscuous and flirty girl, with the exception of the 2013 television series ([[AdaptationalSexuality which turns her into a lesbian instead]]). In the novel she's a pure maiden who loves multiple men, but this gets turned into her lusting after all her potential suitors. Her sole ambition is to marry before she turns 20, though an upper class Victorian woman wouldn't be expected to have more ambition than that. The novel makes a point that Lucy cares for and possibly loves all her potential suitors, but that normally gets lost in adaptations that portray her as a shameless flirt. Kate Beaton, author of the [[WebComic/HarkAVagrant webcomic Hark! A Vagrant]] [[http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=285 cited this incident]], noting:
--> ''Here we have Bram Stoker's Dracula, a book written to tell ladies that if you're not a submissive waif, society goes to hell and ungodly monsters are going to turn you into child killing horrors and someone is going to drive a bowie knife through your heart/cut off your head/etc. As you deserve!''

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic: This book's probably been analysed more than there are vampires. Fear of the foreign and foreigners, capitalism and Jewish stereotypes, maternity and acceptance of motherhood (is Mina a strong or weak character?), Christian and Holy Communion, political repression, homosexuality, you name it; it's been analysed. And of course, blood-drinking equals symbolic sex and/or rape. That's a staple of every vampire book now.

** Anyone (in film, TV or anywhere) doing their impression of Dracula will adopt an outrageous, over-the-top accent that might be confused for Romanian. In the novel, Dracula's English is so good that Jonathan Harker can barely detect an accent at all. What those imitators are doing is an impression of parodies of Bela Lugosi's (Hungarian) accent from the film version.

** Believe it or not, Dracula and ''Renfield'' get this sometimes, albeit with Dracula and Renfield recast as a {{Bishonen}} pretty-boys rather than the old man and the maniac from the book.

* LesYay: Mina sure likes describing how pretty Lucy is. They even share a kiss in ''Film/BramStokersDracula''. The TV series outright makes Lucy a lesbian.

** There is the moment when Dracula attacks Mina. This scene reads like {{attempted rape}} but is brought down by four factors: 1) that Harker is unconscious in the corner with a red face and the description of him sounds as if he's drunk; 2) when the men break the door down Van Helsing goes flying across the floor; and 3) Dr Seward completely kills the moment when he likens the scene in his narration to "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink." Way to kill the mood, Seward.