Line #35 Funny/Dracula


1	!Original Bram Stoker Novel
2	* Van Helsing in the novel has many due to his unusual mannerisms:
3	-->'''John Seward:''' I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin; but only proves one thing.\
4	'''Van Helsing:''' And what is that, friend John?\
5	'''Seward:''' That it is not there.\
6	'''Van Helsing:''' [[CircularReasoning That is good logic, so far as it goes.]]
7	* Seward dictating his notes on Renfield.
8	-->'''Seward:''' I seemed to wish to keep him at the point of madness, a thing I would avoid with patients as I would the mouth of hell. Memorandum, under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?
9	** After Renfield briefly escapes Seward comes up with a plan to allow Renfield to escape by leaving his room unlocked so they can follow him and see where he's trying to go. Renfield doesn't try to escape until an attendant comes in to check on him. Seward's diary entry for this incident has him changing mid-paragraph from musing on how Renfield has quieted and isn't going anywhere to "Hark! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped."
10	** When Seward brings in Mina to meet Renfield for the first time, Renfield says he "needs to tidy up" and immediately swallows his entire bug collection before Seward can say anything. Upon meeting Mina, he asks if she's the woman Seward has been moping over this whole time, which would be weird because she's dead. He reveals to the shocked Seward that basically ''everyone'' knows about his thing with Lucy, likely because of his habit of using a phonograph instead of writing his diary.
11	** Seward introduces Mina to his phonograph entries so she can learn about what's been going on with Dracula and Lucy....only to admit that he completely forgot to ''label'' any of them and has just been throwing the cylinders into his desk drawer when they were done. Mina thus has to painstakingly transcribe all of them on a typewriter to create a coherent log.
12	*** There's an alternate, even funnier explanation: Seward is barefacedly lying about not knowing how to find information on the cylinders because he doesn't want Mina to read his diary. This is understandable, given the fact that he uses it to vent about being romantically rejected and the fact that he needs to cut down on his drug use.
13	* The absolute cringe fest that is Mina's first meeting with Seward. She says that she recognises him by Lucy's description of him - which is basically that he is very handsome and has excellent bone structure - and becomes so embarrassed by this that she goes bright red and starts stammering. Seward promptly blushes at the realisation that Lucy has been talking about him to Mina, and they both just awkwardly stand there.
14	* "[[BluntMetaphorsTrauma Well, the milk that is spilt does not cry out afterwards, as you say.]]"
15	* During Lucy's funeral, Arthur says that, though they were never married in a ceremony, he feels that, since he donated his blood to her, they are still married in a spiritual sense. Van Helsing [[{{Corpsing}} has a hard time keeping his laughter down]], since ''all three'' of Lucy's suitors donated blood, ''as well as Van Helsing!'' If you were to follow this metaphor, it would make both Helsing and Lucy polygamous.
16	** Which, given that Lucy wished to MarryThemAll, may not be too far off from the truth...
17	** Becomes hilarious in hindsight when you realize that Van Helsing is also laughing at how ridiculous he finds the comparison between marriage and blood transfusions to be. Later authors would [[KissOfTheVampire use the vampire's act of sucking blood as a stand-in for sex]]. Stoker is quite clearly saying that [[YourVampiresSuck that would be]] ''[[YourVampiresSuck utterly ridiculous]]''.
18	** John Seward is [[DudeNotFunny considerably less amused than Van Helsing]], which leads Van Helsing to go on an extended spiel about "King Laugh" to explain himself. Dr. Seward is just left even more confused.
19	* More a case of BlackComedy, but just ''how many times'' Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and Jonathan praise themselves over [[StayInTheKitchen the group's "wise" decision to exclude Mina from their vampire-hunting plans, claiming that it would all be too much for a woman to bear]]. They do this for about two chapters. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero And then they discover that keeping Mina in the dark wasn't such a great idea after all...]]
20	-->"When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort — no matter how painful — should be kept from her."
21	* Just the fact that one of the main characters of the novel is a ''cowboy'' sounds like a joke, but is actually completely serious. Nearly everything Quincey says is hysterical to an American audience, and often leave the reader wondering if Stoker ever actually ''met'' an American. At the time ''Dracula'' was written, dime store western novels were not just very popular in the United States, but in the United Kingdom as well. It's likely Quincey's character was inspired by that genre of fiction.
22	** Quincey ''deliberately'' playing up the slang to make Lucy laugh.
23	* Some possibly unintentional BlackComedy at the start, where all the locals keep giving Jonathan good luck charms and holy symbols when they hear where he's going, shudder and cross themselves anytime someone mentions it, and call it things like "the Devil's place"... and Jonathan [[ComicallyMissingThePoint keeps digressing to talk about how he's liking his trip]]! Nothing says SkewedPriorities like a guy who hears the locals muttering about vampires and then immediately makes a note of how good the local cuisine is.
24	** Many modern readers, having absorbed the story through osmosis to the point where ''the name'' Dracula is a certain giveaway that supernatural events are about to ensue, can find [[WrongGenreSavvy Jonathan's actions]] almost endearingly naive to what story he's in.
25	** When Dracula sneaks up on Jonathan while he's shaving, he notices he has no reflection in the shaving mirror in a ''triple-take'' of confusion. After cutting himself by accident, Jonathan has Dracula grab his throat only to be repelled by the crucifix he's wearing. Dracula promptly yells that the shaving mirror is a "bauble of man's vanity", hurls it out the window, and leaves. Jonathan's reaction? To mention his annoyance at having to find a new reflective surface to shave with, like a pot.
26	** His wife Mina isn't immune either. When they chase Dracula to Transylvania, Mina chatters about how strange and "superstitious" the locals are...because they assumed, correctly, that Mina was a vampire from the way that the Eucharist burned on contact with her skin. And this is ''after'' they learn that vampires exist, making her skepticism on this matter [[ArbitrarySkepticism particularly misplaced]].
27	* When Jonathan escapes Castle Dracula, he manages to get to Klausenberg railway station (now Cluj-Napoca in Romania) and demands a ticket for home. The railway staff conclude, solely from his "violent demeanour" that he is English and give him one for the furthest station away on the route. It's a spectacular gag about English tourists that still works today and a good bit of shade from an Irish author.
28	* After talking to some rather crass mariners, Van Helsing reports them as having described many, many things as "of bloom" and "of blood", or some variation. One may eventually figure out that the mariners were liberally peppering their sentences with the oaths "blooming" and "bloody", and Van Helsing has in typical fashion completely butchered the expressions. And he goes out of his way to point out ''every instance'' where they used these oaths, as if this were a salient detail. [[OverlyLongGag For three long paragraphs.]]
29	-->'''Van Helsing:''' Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quick — with blood — for that his ship will leave the place — of blood — before the turn of the tide — with blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues, tell him that he doesn't want no Frenchmen — with bloom upon them and also with blood — in his ship — with blood on her also.
30	* Dracula turning up to take a ship back to Transylvania is dressed all in black... except for a straw hat on his head. In October, which is distinctly not a summer month. This supposedly fearsome vampire lord flees the country in a silly hat and with the captain only taking him along due to him paying a lot of money.
31	* Van Helsing tells the group that Dracula can turn into a bat, and Quincey leaves the room. Moments later, gunshots ring out, and Quincey walks back in and casually mentions that he saw a bat and "[[ProperlyParanoid took care of it]]".
32	* Dracula keeping up the illusion of having servants when he actually does all the work in the castle by hand leads to some funny mental images.
33	** Dracula picks Jonathan up from the pass while disguised as a coachman, complete with false beard. After arriving at the castle, he essentially runs inside, changes his clothes, and doubles back so he can pretend to 'meet' Jonathan for the first time.
34	** Dracula doing all the housework while the three vampire ladies essentially do nothing has led to jokes that they're terrible roommates.
35	* While the consequences are of course horrifying in that it causes Lucy's mother to have a heart attack, the fact that Dracula ''chucks a '''tame''' wolf through a window'' is hilarious, especially when the poor thing meekly makes his way back to the zoo with glass in his fur.
36	* When Van Helsing tracks down Mina, looking for information on when Lucy first started "falling ill," she readily agrees to meet him, and in preparation types up both her and Jonathan's journals, written in shorthand, on her typewriter in regular type. When Van Helsing asks if she can recall anything about Lucy's early stages of affliction, Mina says she can do better, that she wrote it all down as it happened. Van Helsing is very excited, and asks to see her journal. Mina, feeling a bit mischievous, hands him the original shorthand one, and when Van Helsing asks if he can read it, she coquettishly replies he can certainly try. When he opens it and sees the shorthand symbols, his face falls, and he rather sheepishly asks Mina if she could read it to him, at which point Mina produces the typed version, much to Van Helsing's delight. Given the Professor himself has a rather off-kilter sense of humor, it's likely this joke went a long way to ingratiating Mina to him.
37	* Jonathan is investigating where the Count may have moved some of his boxes to, and believes he's found another house Dracula is using for a lair, but his attempts to confirm it are stymied by the solicitor who handled the property refusing to say anything beyond "It has been sold," and when pressed, that his clients earn his discretion.
38	-->'''Jonathan''': [[SophisticatedAsHell This was, manifestly, a prig of the first order.]]

Context Funny / Dracula