@fred-erick-frankenstein / fred-erick-frankenstein.tumblr.com
from the Milwaukee Ballet's production of Michael Pink's Dracula Luz San Miguel as Lucy Westenra Parker Brasser-Vos as Quincey P. Morris Timothy O'Donnell as Arthur Holmwood
Is there any way I can reinterpret the text so Arthur Holmwood is actually interesting? He just seems so boring and flat compared to our failed mad scientist and our Ameriboo cowboy
[Spoilers: Vaguing about later plot points re: Arthur]
It's taken me far longer than it normally would to address this ask because... there's honestly not a lot going on with Arthur. I am convinced that he was a very late addition to the novel in Stoker's planning process, and I theorize that he was inserted to avoid the weird impropriety in having Lucy's fiance (originally slated to be Jack) also be her doctor. He's sort of there to serve as a means through which the much more fleshed out suitors navigate their own feelings as regard Lucy without actually having the intimacy of a successful lover.
Later on, we'll find out he's a dog guy (sort of), which is kind of endearing. He does resemble one character's long dead relative even if it's never fully explored. He'll eventually have some pretty emotional moments in the plot that I think will give the reader a sense of sympathy for him (even if they are filtered through Jack's narration).
At the end of the day, though, he's just not as interesting a guy as the novel's cowboy or ethically dubious psychiatrist.
If you really want to reach for something beyond what's explicit in the text, it might be worthwhile to examine Arthur as the novel's only nobleman other than the Count and how he and Dracula might run parallel in their claims to/actions towards Lucy. It also might be worth tracking how they regard themselves as noblemen in relation to non-nobles and how they wield the privileges of nobility. We have already seen the tyranny/violence that the Count enacts on the locals, and we'll eventually see Arthur using his title as leverage in ways that may or may not strike a readers as morally acceptable. His connection to the aforementioned dogs is also interesting a novel so laden with references to the animal world, and his friendship with two very different types of men of status/wealth is worth a think in a novel so grounded in the concerns of the professional classes.
Potential additional themes and things to think about in relation to Arthur:
Further reasons to appreciate him (very mild spoilers below):
And finally:
Dracula characters as guys made up by the make up a guy guy on twitter.
[ID: several screenshots of tweets by "make up a guy". For better accessibility I'll add their names again before the transcript of the tweets:
Arthur: guy who jingles loudly when shaken.
Dracula: guy whose will includes turning their mausoleum into an escape room.
Jonathan: guy who could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now.
Quincey: guy who could easily take on 30-50 feral hogs in hand-to-hoof combat to protect their children playing in the backyard.
Lucy: guy that's your girlfriend.
Renfield: guy who points and says "oh my god, it's a bug" every time they see a bug.
Van Helsing: guy whose riddles three you must solve before they hand you anything on their side of the dinner table.
Mina: guy who made a wiki to keep track of all their friends' stats and lore.
Dr. Seward: guy who chooses to not believe when told "believe it or not". /end ID].
i am SICK and TIRED of all these people who don’t see why lucy would have any interest in arthur or dr. seward “when quincey is right there”
like yeah, quincey morris is a cowboy, he’s funny, he’s a respectful gun-totin’ slang-spoutin’ king, he kills the vampire, and we love him
arthur holmwood is a nice guy who gets along with her mother and takes her out to concerts, and he’s tall and mega-rich AND he has floppy brown hair
and jack seward is an excellent conversationalist who’s literally running his own lunatic asylum at 29 (and doing a really good job of it too?? like he treats his patients very well for it being the 1890s??)
each one of them is an absolute KING and it is COMPLETELY UNDERSTANDABLE to be tormented by the mere prospect of needing to choose only one
As a modern reader, the clear solution to Lucy Westenra’s suitor conundrum is polyamory. They’re all such stand up chaps they don’t mind that Lucy has affection for others; it’d work out great.
may i inquire as to if whether this has already been done before?
the beheading of Lucy. or as I like to call it: cracking open a cold one with the boys.
Good morning to closeted professors with a lot of internalized homophobia, bi psychologists with daddy issues and undiagnosed mental illnesses, feminist school teachers who don’t think it’s gay to make out with their best friend, real estate agents who did not Sign Up for This Shit, secretly goth polyamorous pan Victorian socialites, weird rich kids, unpatriotic afroindigenous cowboys who just wanna take care of their horses and go on wacky adventures with their best friends, mental asylum patients who enjoy eating bugs, and reclusive old men who drink human blood.
Jonathan: being plagued by vampires, playing with his kukri knive in a passive-agressive-depressive manner
Mina: cheering everybody else up although she is the one about to die (or worse)
Lucy: being lovely, rejecting proposals, dying
Van Helsing: making blood transfusions, expressing himself mainly through metaphors and other stylistic devices
Dr. Seward: being slightly depressed, yet sweet and helpful
Arthur: being rich and becoming a lord - thus “lording” his way through all the obstacles they come to face
Quincey: being the Victorian cowboy that he is
-Jack Seward
not sure what made me decide to draw this but it’s nice to know jonathan isn’t the only Idiot Protagonist
Lucy Westernra loved Mina Harker.
She also loved Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, and Dr. Seward.
She writes to Mina and says that she wishes that she didn’t have to choose between the men she loved because she wanted to marry all three of them and hated to be the cause of any sadness they’d have.
Lucy Westernra was not possessive of Mina Harker, nor was she jealous of Mina and Jonathan’s relationship.
Lucy is overjoyed when Mina gets married and whenever the topic of their relationship is brought up- wether in conversation or in the few POV chapters we get from her- she is supportive of her best friend and talks of how well-matched they are and she’s so happy that she gets to see two of her best friends with someone they love.
I mean, Mina even says that Lucy isn’t jealous by nature!!!
Mina and Lucy obviously had a relationship closer than regular friendship, and closer than a “sisterly bond”. Mina says that she loves Lucy with “All the moods and tenses of the verb,” and also mentions several times how lovely Lucy is when she’s asleep with words that a lover would. Was it just super deep platonic feelings? Was it romance? Was it something different? Who knows? But the fact remains, they certainly weren’t two bros chilling in a hot tub five feet apart.
Mina Harker loved Lucy with all her heart.
She also loved Jonathan Harker.
Seriously, Mina and Jonathan are relationship goals and a perfect example of a power couple. They’ve known each other since they were children, they share interests, their strengths compliment each other’s, they’re supportive, they’re in love. Jonathan was literally willing to have Mina turn him into a vampire if they couldn’t stop her turning in time. When Jonathan made his escape from Castle Dracula, the last thing he thinks of is Mina. He was ready to rip Dracula apart with his bare hands on the spot after Mina got attacked. Mina told Jonathan not to share any information with her once the mental link happened because she didn’t want to hurt him or the rest of the Crew of Light. She memorized entire train schedules just because she wanted to help Jonathan out with his commute time. She tried to help him with every resource she got and begged Van Helsing to assist that effort. They literally don’t keep any secrets from each other.
A lot of this applies to her relationship with Lucy.
I’m here for Lucy being in love with Mina explicitly in adaptations of Dracula, but I think that recently people are forgetting that Lucy wasn’t jealous of Mina or hated Jonathan or anything of the sort. Lucy was the embodiment of a precious cinnamon roll who loved her best friend and loved all three of the men who proposed to her and gladly would’ve married Arthur, Quincey, Seward, Mina, and Jonathan if she could’ve.
I just really don’t like that some portrayals of her it’s Lucy in the Closet who is in love with Mina and longs for her but unfortunately she’s in love with a Straight Man and in a Hetero Relationship where the man isn’t really that great of a guy for her- which is also mean to Jonathan because again, he would kill everyone in the room and then himself if anything happened to Mina and was just a nice dude In General- and can’t accept the fact that she’s got Romantic Feelings for Lucy so there’s a weird dance because Lucy Has To Be In The Closet Because Victorian Society Won’t Accept Her and Mina Is In Denial About Her Feelings For Lucy And Is Throwing Her Happiness Away For A Straight Relationship With A Jerk. It’s not very fair to any of them, and it actually ruins the driving force for the whole gang’s campaign against Dracula.
The whole reason why they even came together was because they loved Lucy, Lucy loved them, and the monster who slowly and torturously killed her before turning her into a monster has hell to pay. Stop pitting wholesome relationships against each other and trying to make statements about Oppressive Victorian Society with characters who actually were counterculture in their own ways in the original material, and don’t forget that Quincey, Arthur, and Seward exist and were in love with Lucy and were loved by Lucy.
TL;DR Lucy Westernra was a sweetheart who was most likely plyamourous, and writing her as being jealous of Mina and Mina’s relationship due to some form of unrequited love and being Forever Alone is misinterpreting a deep and unselfish love for her friend as well as erasing her own romantic arc and relationships.
Idk I just noticed this sort of thing and it took me a while to understand why I fully support Mina/Lucy but didn’t like a good chunk of the Mina/Lucy content I’ve seen and wanted to make an extremely long and rambling post about it once it clicked.
I’ve decided that my contribution to the Dracula fandom in this site will consist of me telling Hollywood and everyone else who adapts Dracula to back the fuck away from the Harker’s because if you wanted to write an angsty vampire love triangle you already have one with Seward, Lucy, and Arthur. Seward literally spends the whole book mourning the fact that he can’t be with Lucy because she is either with Arthur, dead, or a vampire. Meanwhile, Arthur almost caves to vampire Lucy twice and this would be a great way to give him some characterization outside of ‘rich boy’. There is seriously so much potential, you cowards!
