History UsefulNotes / VladTheImpaler

* ''Comicbook/DraculaLives'', a SpinOff from Creator/MarvelComics' ''Comicbook/TheTombOfDracula'', tells its own story of how Vlad Dracula became the Lord of Vampires alongside with other tales of villainy and bloodsucking.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler Vlad III Drăculea]] (1431–1476) was a medieval ruler of Wallachia (a region of what is now Romania) who is best remembered today for his bloody deeds and for lending his {{UsefulNotes/patronymic}} name to the archetypal vampire {{Dracula}}. Though he wasn't known for biting people's necks or drinking their blood ([[DependingOnTheWriter maybe]]), he was nevertheless well-known for spilling it. A man of extremes in turbulent times, he has been regarded either as a [[WellIntentionedExtremist brutal but fair]] hero, or a completely crazy sociopath. As Voivode (warlord) of Wallachia, he earned the nickname "Vlad the Impaler", or Vlad Țepeș in Romanian, from his practice of [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impalement,]] which was, and still is, one of the most gruesome ways of dying imaginable.

Vlad was born in Sighișoara, Transylvania in the winter of 1431 to a noble family, in a time when the Christian states of Eastern Europe, which included Hungary, Translyvania, Wallachia, Moldavia and others, contended for power with each other and the Ottoman Turkish Empire. His father was Vlad II Dracul, future Voivode of Wallachia and son of the celebrated Voivode Mircea the Elder. His mother is believed to be the second wife of Vlad Dracul, Princess Cneajna of Moldavia. He had two older half-brothers, Mircea II and Vlad IV Călugărul (Vlad the Monk), and a younger brother, Radu III the Fair. His family lived in Transylvania, but was of Wallachian descent. In later life he would divide his time between the two regions, both now part of modern Romania.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: He usually signed Romanian documents just as ''Vlad'', but sometimes he signed as ''Drakulya''. In Latin documents he rendered his name as ''Wladislaus Dragwlya'', though his birth name was just "Vlad" instead of "Vladislav" - the names were equated in Latin but not in Romanian. Other variations of "Dracula" include ''Draculea'' and ''Dragolea''. All of this has mostly stopped now, as if he's being fully named he's just referred to as ''Vlad III Dracula'', ''Vlad III'', or ''Vlad the Impaler'' (or ''Vlad Țepeș'' in Romanian).

After Vlad's death, his cruel deeds were reported with macabre gusto in popular pamphlets in Germany, reprinted from the 1480s until the 1560s, and to a lesser extent in Tsarist Russia. These works estimated for the number of his victims ranges from 40,000 to 100,000, comparable to the cumulative number of executions over four centuries of European witch hunts. According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was at least 80,000. In addition to the 80,000 victims mentioned he also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground. These numbers are most likely exaggerated.

Surprisingly, while German, Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish literature and folklore all portray Dracula as a monster, he's considered a hero in Romania for his opposition to both Hungarian and Ottoman conquest, being voted among the 100 Greatest Romanians as recently as 2006 (compare UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart, UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte or UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington). This tradition of valorizing Vlad the Impaler dates to the era of romantic nationalism, when Romanian intellectuals, artists, historians, re-interpreted their past to find heroes of nationalism. Vlad the Impaler fit the tenor and purpose of their times. Before then, there's little to no record of Vlad the Impaler being especially popular and well liked by the people of Wallachia and Romania. The earliest Romanian chronicle about Vlad the Impaler discussed his persecution of the Romanian boyars. Romanian folklorists documented the existence of an ongoing Romanian oral tradition among the peasantry which consistently featured Vlad III as an evil feudal lord and boogeyman figure, and the existence and persistence of this tradition from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century suggests that the Voivode's cruelty and misdeeds might have been truly extensive for the peasantry to maintain such an ongoing tradition and that it's not merely the case that his enemies demonized him exclusively. The ameliorative tradition of the Impaler originated among the Romanian intelligentsia, and as such comes from top-down rather than from the people. Most notably, during the Communist Era, where the Nicolae Ceaușescu regime elevated Dracula as a national hero using the earlier romantic tradition, and the precedent of a tradition justifying a ruler who indulged in cruelties for the greater good (as romantic nationalists defended Vlad III) was quite useful to Ceaușescu in a manner not dissimilar to UsefulNotes/JosefStalin and his fondness for Ivan the Terrible.

** Another story goes that some diplomats refused to take off their caps or turbans in his presence because it was their custom to keep their heads covered. Vlad offered to help them with that, and ordered their headgear to be nailed to their heads. The story changes tone depending on the headgear - if caps, Vlad is committing atrocities against fellow Christians; if turbans, Vlad is [[AcceptableTargets sticking it to the Turks.]]

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* The second season of the historical docudrama ''Series/RiseOfEmpiresOttoman'' is about the Ottomans' war against Vlad. The series also gets heavily into the [[ItsPersonal personal relationship]] between Vlad and Sultan Mehmet II, since they grew up together at the Ottoman court.

** Interestingly, the character of Count Strahd was first sketched out as a villain in a standalone adventure module written in the early 80's. The release of the ''Realms of Terror'' campaign boxed set was the first, though, to detail his history and motivations in depth. As the campaign setting was released in 1990 and the ''Bram Stoker's Dracula'' film in 1992, this makes the movie version of the good Count OlderThanTheyThink.

* In a light novel from [[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Type-MOON]], ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', Vlad the Impaler is once again a Lancer class Servant. However, this [[YouDontLookLikeYou incarnation is a different character]] than his ''Fate/Extra'' counterpart, and is actually rather upset about the whole "Dracula" thing, saying it was malicious rumors spread about him. He's still not a vampire, as within the established rules of Nasuverse vampires, though he has a Noble Phantasm that turns him into the common depiction of Dracula.

** Another story goes that some diplomats refused to take off their caps or turbans in his presence because it was their custom to keep their heads covered. Vlad offered to help them with that, and ordered their headgear to be nailed to their heads. The story changes tone depending on the headgear - if caps, Vlad is committing atrocities against fellow Christians; if turbans, Vlad is [[Acceptable Targets sticking it to the Turks.]]

* TheDreaded: The Ottomans and the Austrians alike quivered in their boots whenever this man was so much as ''mentioned'', tales of dread spread across Europe of his brutality and ruthlessness (though like [[UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun several]] [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionheart other]] [[UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan historical]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}} figures]] it could have been purposeful propaganda to discourage invaders from entering his territory). With that being said, the Romanian people may hail him as a hero ''today'', it's quite doubtful they would have back in 15th Century Wallachia. He was easily one of the most feared and loathed rulers of that period and is infamous even to this day, more than five hundred years after his death. How feared was he? One story tells of a time when Vlad III bought an exquisite golden chalice - said to be of the finest quality and embroidered with all manner of precious stones - into the poorest region of his empire and put it in the town square. He claimed the people were allowed to use it freely as long as it never left the town square ([[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumour the man was a lot of things but humourless was not one of them]]). It remained in that '''exact spot for twelve years''', with not a ''single'' person even daring to touch it (again in the ''poorest region'' of Wallachia). While this story may or may not have happened at all, the fact that most people are willing to accept it as fact should tell you something.

* KarmicDeath: He was stabbed to death (i.e impaled) by some Ottoman soldiers. His head was also reportedly [[DeadGuyOnDisplay impaled on a spike after his death.]]