Of Wolves* And Bats...

Of wolves* and bats...

*A response to DD September 18 in two parts; I talked about wolves in another post.

Bats. VAMPIRE BATS, specifically.

Today our beloved cowboy, Quincey, relates the story of the overnight exsanguination of a horse, *relating the incident overtly to Lucy's illness." He describes damage to the "gorge" aka throat.

I have to conclude this was Stoker slapping the reader upside the head just in case due to their inexperience with vampire fiction they might not yet have figured out what was going on with Lucy. What with Victorian Lady Dying Disease being a thing, or whatever it's called.

But come on, Seward. COME ON. Did you not JUST NOTICE that Lucy's throat puncture marks look mangled? Have you not been racking your brain to think of how she could possibly be losing blood? Have you not SPOTTED BATS flying around in the sky?

I'm certainly not suggesting Jack should realize it's a vampire monster. But when Quincey told his story how could Jack not respond "HOLD UP. A bat drained your horse of blood overnight, you say? And Van Helsing insists we keep the windows shut in Lucy's room? DEATH TO BATS!!!"

"Yes but Cherry, vampire bats aren't native to England."

Of course not, but ships are docking in London from all over the world, friend. You really want to argue that ONE vampire bat couldn't have stowed away?

I get that up until now it was reasonable for no one but VH to have a clue about what the illness afflicting Lucy could be. But Quincey dropped *that* story and Jack didn't pick it up I'm dtvgdggdhhgjj

I love the Dracula Daily progression of:

“Uh, adaptions seem to not know what to do with Jonathan. That sucks, he deserves better :/“

“Adaptions have Mina fall in love with WHOM?? Why would they do this to her??”

“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL ALL THOSE WRITERS FOR LUCY, GET ME MY KNIFE—“

The same is true of an illness, though, especially since they immediately rule out any sort of anemia (why do they do that??). I think, in Jack's shoes, I'm like, totally flummoxed, right? Super upset and worried. Honestly I'd probably suspect the mother or a member of the staff. Someone is exsanguinating Lucy. I'd also be grasping for potential animals. I'd be in the library trying to figure out if rats ever drink blood or something. Actually, (tw animal suffering/death)

.

.

I used to have chickens and found two of them totally exsanguinated one morning. We think it was a weasel. So as Jack I'd be like, "Is a fucking WEASEL getting in here somehow???" And my mind would keep linking the blood loss to anything similar I'd encountered with my patients, so I really do think it's reasonable to want him to start having these ideas, even if he can't make them fit or make sense.

Someone here asked why Jack doesn’t yet suspect that someone is preying on Lucy, and it got me thinking. It’s a great point. The Jack the Ripper murders predate Dracula by a few years. Why wouldn’t Jack, a man who deals with people like Renfield every day, think of the Ripper and begin putting together a theory of some madman (his term) crawling through Lucy’s window at night?

I poked around Google to see if there’s any connection between Stoker and the Ripper. Aside from him meeting two men suspected of being the Ripper (did he know they were suspects? it didn’t say), there doesn’t seem to be much there. One source did mention that he made a comparison between the evil of the Ripper and the evil of Dracula. So we know Stoker was aware of serial killers; hence Seward should be, too.

Anyway as I was reading my findings I was struck by something else. In multiple sources people dismiss the idea that Dracula was based on the Ripper because the Ripper tortured and killed prostitutes while Dracula “romantically” preys on high class ladies.

You guys.

Okay, to be clear, I don’t see much evidence that Stoker based Dracula on the Ripper.

But like. Did any of these people read the book? Romantically? Ffs.

Also (and this is the point I’ve been working towards, believe it or not) the idea that Dracula doesn’t prey on poor sex workers just annoys me. We have no idea. No one would tell us, in this epistolary novel, if sex workers were turning up dead in London gutters. It’s not newsworthy when a sex worker dies looking pale but otherwise unharmed. We’ve seen that Drac has a huge appetite (*cough*Demeter crew*cough*). The fact he *hasn’t* killed Lucy yet implies an almost guarantee that he’s eating other people. Who better than sex workers? Maybe some vagrants here and there, too. The way they die would likely mislead most people who found the bodies into thinking it wasn’t by violence, too.

Dracula likes to slowly torture and draw out his kill when it comes to Lucy. Is she the only one? We have no idea.

Aaand now I want a story about Dracula’s unknown victims.

Okay, so what about the fact that London isn’t becoming overrun with fledgling vampires? Well, idk if Stoker ever gives us an explanation for how Drac makes new vampires, but it’s clearly not an automatic thing, or Transylvania would have a lot more of them (a lot of them babies–yikes).

Will someone pretty please write the story of these missing victims?

Maybe I’ll take a crack at it…

UNOPENED

WHAT DO YOU MEAN UNOPENED

Sir Edward Burne-Jones, School For Dragon Babies, 1884, pencil on paper

Van Helsing, trying desperately not to get put in a straitjacket: don't tell anyone about this. in fact I'm not even going to tell you. just make sure you don't go to sleep. the garlic is medicine okay and it stays. you wouldn't dig up a corn, would you? CORN, Jack. guys she ran out of blood we need your blood don't ask why. I'm off to Amsterdam don't die.

Quincey Morris, showing up a week late with Starbucks: hmmm sounds like vampires to me