Often a thing must be loved before it is lovable

The more I think about the ending of Dracula, the more it dissatisfies me.

I seem to be going against the tumblr flow here, but here we go:

- Dracula’s castle is barely used. Van Helsing pops in, saws the gates off, and performs a few decapitations. But it’s all rendered in his version of English, which for me at least lessens the tension (because I often struggle to understand what he means).

- Dracula’s death felt too quick and too easy after such a long build-up. Yes, Quincey died, but even then the sequence felt too rushed. I have sat through very long descriptions of typing and organising and I was hoping for a similarly long winded action sequence. Didn’t get it.

- The absence of female voices. This feels especially annoying after a book that put them front and centre. Mina goes silent as they near the castle, which is understandable, but we never hear from her after her recovery. I would have loved her perspective. A line reflecting on Lucy would have also added a great deal.

- The shortness of the epilogue. Our heroes render entire conversations from memory and you want to end this with ‘PS, we’re good’?

Tl;dr - I feel a bit cheated. Reminds me of a Star Trek episode where they resolve the problem by reversing the polarity in the last two minutes.

dracula daily just finished so i'm gonna ramble below the readmore

To me really it is that the first half was good, but as soon as Lucy was killed and everyone came together the story just... fizzled out and Bram was struggling very hard doing the equivalent of fluffing up an essay to reach the minimum word count. Which is a pity. The novel clearly needed reworking.

Quinceyham Arjack Jonaheminucy Harker is the clear spiritual predecessor to Renesmee Carlie Cullen, and I hope we now have a better appreciation for how far the vampire author traditions of babies named after too many people, blatant self inserts, and very rapidly resolved ending sequences in the snowfields go.

Now that the book is nearly over, we should acknowledge that Dracula may have escaped if he could’ve blocked Mina’s vampire gps tracking powers. That’s why I recommend Nord VPN-

Because the thing about Quincey's death is it does super feel very random. I have this image in my head of Stoker going "right I need one of these characters to die a beautifully tragic death so that my story is very Adult and Bittersweet *spins character wheel* alright Quincey it is. Like truly it could have been any of the suitors for the same emotional impact. Like... \_(:/)_/ things need to happen in stories sometimes characters die but this feels a bit lazy to me.

How Dracula should have ended

I hope, now that it is all over, that Jonathan is able to go back to the village and thank the woman who gave him the crucifix. If you think about it, it was that action which ultimately enabled the count to be defeated. Without Jonathan making it out alive and able to provide the crucial information about who Dracula was and where he came from, I doubt Van Helsing et al would have been able to track him down. Considering how many generations of the locals Dracula had oppressed and terrorized, I am very glad that one of them was able to have a role in his downfall.

"every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo" this is. this is the plot to van helsing (2004).

Congrats to Van Helsing for being genre savvy and getting rid of the doors lest they should shut creepily behind his back and trigger an autosave :D

That was the FUNNIEST THING like "doors can't lock behind me if there are no doors." Just pause at the creepy vampire castle to physically remove the doors like he's in Minecraft. Breaking and Entering taken up to the next level. I applaud you sir.