22,000 leagues under the sea were my first

This ship is a hunting ground...

Van Helsing: we must plan what each and all shall do

Arthur:

I love how we never are told explicitly what Dracula does, yet we realize the truth. We're left to put the pieces together. We're never shown or told that he drank the crew or that he tossed them once he took what he wanted just to spread terror and doubt like we know he loved doing with Jonathan, so we fill in the blanks from previous knowledge. We're not told that he's hiding in a grave of suicide, we're told a nice dog freaked out at that one grave which Mina and Lucy have been sharing a seat the history of which we already know thanks to Mina's early inquiries.

We're told that Mr. Swales died of horror right there as well. But his neck is broken. Did he really die of horror, or did Dracula kill him because -he being so close to Death at 99 years old- could recognize him for what he is, and go warn the girls and the rest? Just like he recognized that the Demeter looks and smells like Death itself from the horizon? You're left to wonder, just like how he spreads doubt and is an unknown horror hiding from sight.

This is a kind of horror that is missing from adaptations that make it all about Dracula arriving to Seduce The Women/make him a romantic goth guy, the eerie slow progression from the point of view of the unsuspecting victims that we can feel it will eventually crescendo to something hellish.

On one hand Bram taking his second job as a writer more seriously and hiring a good editor might have led to a clearer timeline and less oversights like Lucy's hair colour but on the other hand a proper editor might have questioned why does everyone sound so bi or why is there a cowboy so I honestly think we gained in the bargain

The more I read of Dracula, curiously, the more I understand the thought process behind the dracmina in adaptations. Mind you, I don't think it is good, but it makes more sense. The more the novel advances, the less agency and autonomy Mina has, till the point she becomes the team's GPS/inspirational token/burden we need to carry so that it isn't weaponized against us. And pretty much the only two ways to avoid this is by either not having her bitten by Dracula (which would change about half the plot beyond recognition) or by making her a willing participant in the seduction, so THERE at least she gets to exert some of her will in taking control of something.

It's broken, it has terrible implications, it's imbibed in yucky "women crave bad boys, good, polite men are weak and effeminate" rhetoric, but at the end of the day is far less nonsense than what the reading of the early parts of the book led me to think.

I don’t think those are the only options.

I always hoped for a story where she fights her way back into her life, not as burden to the team but as independent woman, finding her independence.Because Mina was important, without her the team would have achieved nothing. So I always hoped that in the second half the team doesn’t leave her behind, at home, protected as the weak woman she is, but that she joins the finale hunt, to take revenge, to cut every ties she may have ever had with Dracula

We can show she kind of get seduces by Dracula but she resists, gets her autonomy back