LGBTAitp 27: Of Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax

[Mina Kobold]

I loved that bit. It always made so much sense to me; a vampire is a strictly alien being, and not the brightest. Only after years of subtle conditioning could Dracula escape the confines of his self imposed exile, and reclaim a sliver of human ingenuity. As for outsmarting, well, at the end of ye conversation that smart human is about 70kg of normal, while Dracula is still a supernatural apex predator. Outsmarting only goes so far

It can work, but the book just seemed to want me to consider them harmless babies who can be distracted by shouting "Look! A distraction!" rather than any kind of predator.
I think it might have been Van Helsing's exposition that ruined it, though. Dracula could have come of like an inhuman monster who could kill you in seconds, but at no point is that showed and Van Helsing keeps saying that the Vampires are like children and that Dracula needed to see people move boxes for months before realising "Hey, maybe I can move them!"

Sorry. ^_^'

They are demons? I confess to disliking Buffy and related shows enough not to bother with them. Charmed is particularly high on my unnecessary dislike list.

A demon takes over, yes. It has the same memories and some of the personality of the human, but is completely without remorse or empathy. I am not sure if the demon existed previously, though.

Any particular reason to disliking it? I can certainly see that it is not for everybody, just curious.

The book was great, writing wise. Misogynistic, yes, bu that's a side of the culture at the time. I like to think of it as a moral Crux. Every man there wanted to be in dracula's shoes. Power. Women. Fear. And all it cost was your soul... That sort of contrast between moral and immoral was the point. Only cleaving to human ideals made them any better. They were no less wicked than the monster Rey chased, but they sought to contain it and better themselves. Dracula reveled in it. this makes it somewhat palatable. Everyone was fallible. That's the point.

Perhaps, but I found it particularly obnoxious about it. I admit to have read only little from the era, but what I have read tend to either have no mention of gender having any importance (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) or made fun of it ("The Importance of Being Earnest", which mentions the term "Equality of the sexes") so I might have come at it from a wrong angle. Sorry. ^_^'

Never really caught that metaphor, but that was probably for the same reason. I really need to get started on researching Victorian culture.