How would Jo Grant (classic Doctor Who) do, do you think?
Jo Grant my absolute beloved. To know her is to love her, in universe and out. If you don't know her, or if you just want to love her more, read Why I Like Jo Grant.
Jo Grant is incredibly Good and incredibly Kind. She's made elder gods implode with her radical self-sacrificial compassion more than once. (...sadly that is unlikely to work on Dracula). She has more upright decent gentlemen vying for her hand than Lucy Westenra, and outclasses them all.
It's actually very tempting read Jo as a Lucy Westenra type - embodiment of Purity and Goodness, Sweetness and Light, beloved by all, to be protected at all costs, too good for this sinful earth, etc etc etc. But Jo has two things poor Lucy lacks: Women's Liberation and a degree in Escapology.
Jo would never refuse the kindness of strangers. "Sorry, but I really must" is as core a part of her vocabulary as it is of Mr Harker's. She is reasonably scared of things that are scary - again, just like in the book, the wolves will terrify her but she'll try to save Dracula from them anyway. She'll be fun for Dracula to mess with, but she's too cheerful and hopeful to break. He'll have to settle for making her cry, or the occasional well-timed scream. She will definitely give Dracula a piece of her mind when he earns it, but she's like 5 feet tall and blonde, she'll never read as a threat to him so he'll find her empty defiance funny.
She can befriend anybody. Anybody. She's just that nice. She maintains a surprisingly healthy friendship with an Evil Supervillain who also has a beard Satan in Hell would be proud of and she tells him she hates him every day. Unfortunately she's in the Girls Are Food Not Friends castle. So the overwhelming affection she inspires in anyone withing a 30 foot radius will manifest in Dracula as "well, a girl like that you don't eat all at once" and in the Girlies as "It's Free Sister." They are eager to welcome vampire!Jo to their number with open arms. (Jo is, of course, very firm on the fact that she no more wants to be a permanent resident of Castle Dracula any more than she wants to be Queen of Peladon or Skaro or Llanfairfach). She can't talk them out of Being Vampires, but I think it's enough to keep her from being outright murdered for a good long time.
Jo has been held prisoner in Castles before. She's a very good prisoner, with the right balance of compliance and escape attempts to keep it interesting. She would absolutely try to get the help of Dracula's movers, and when the Hetman turned over her letters she would give him Disappointed Jo Face that wouldn't change anything right now, but would make him feel bad enough about himself and his life choices that maybe he doesn't help Dracula back into the country six months later and just lets the pursuing troupe of Really Very Angry Englishpeople have him. Jo's well-placed moral censure may not get her out of the Castle, but it might still save a Gallant Gentleman a couple of fatal stab wounds down the line. (She still won't marry him, but he'll recover from that too).
Jo has also climbed down walls and up cliffs before. In a princess dress and inappropriate shoes! She's the best dressed human on the whole show (sorry Polly...) and fashion does not restrain her. The real tragedy is that when Dracula steals her wardrobe it suits neither him nor the season. That said I would LOVE to see the Girlies in any three of Jo's outfits. Shuffling along a narrow ledge on the outside of a Castle above a sheer cliff (in ballet flats!) to climb in someone else's window is in fact a thing she has done. So yes Jo can make it down the wall and through the wilderness (she's a bit unstoppable when she gets an idea in her head) and collapse somewhere and win the hearts of a whole lot of nuns with her gentle sweetness. She can also pick locks. I don't think she would hit Dracula in the face with a shovel, but she would absolutely go through his pockets looking for a nonexistent key.
It's worth noting that Jo also taught herself to resist hypnosis and uses her self-training to best the guy whose whole deal is Hypnotizing People. After her first taste of the vampiric trance on May 16th this girl would take steps. Brain Fever is no match for Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Goddd Jo and Lucy would be such good friends. Jo and Mina would be such good friends - Jo could actually convince her to lighten up a bit. And both of these vampire-ridden young ladies could really really use a friend like Jo. Improve the number of female characters in every novel by adding Jo Grant and giving these poor ladies a break and a sympathetic ear.
Jo Grant is extremely victim coded and, in all honestly, she makes a very good victim (though she does end up getting strapped to fewer things and sacrificed to fewer entities than, say, Sarah Jane Smith). Jo Grant makes an excellent prisoner. Jo Grant is a perfectly ordinary human being from contemporary London. And Jo Grant can survive Castle Dracula.
